The Union government has convened the first meeting of the Cauvery Supervisory Committee here on Saturday. The Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala are expected to participate in it.
The meeting, to be chaired by Water Resources Secretary and committee head S.K. Sarkar, will hold preliminary discussions and set its business.
Besides the four States, the chairman of the Central Water Commission and its Chief Engineer are members of the committee.
The meeting takes place in the backdrop of Tamil Nadu filing a suit in the Supreme Court, seeking about Rs. 2500 crore in damages for crop losses owing to non-release of the stipulated amount of Cauvery water by Karnataka under the interim award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT).
On May 22, the Centre notified a Cauvery Water (Implementation of the Order of 2007) Scheme, 2013, under which the supervisory committee was constituted.
The scheme and the panel were notified under the directions of the Supreme Court with the mandate to oversee “the implementation of the final order of the CWDT dated February 5, 2007, as notified on February 19, 2013.”
The award prescribes the sharing of Cauvery waters between basin States.
