The Kerala government may well be within its right as it makes a renewed bid to build a dam on the Siruvani river, but the manner in which it is seeking to execute its plan has agitated farmers in western districts of Tamil Nadu and political parties across the spectrum.
The neighbouring State has been allocated a total of 30 thousand million cubic feet (tmc) by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT). This includes 6 tmc from the Bhavani sub-basin, which encompasses the Siruvani too. Of the allocated figure, 2.87 tmc has been earmarked for the Attapady irrigation scheme and this explains the basis of the Kerala government’s present proposal, which is to impound 2.29 tmc. According to the project promoter, the key beneficiaries are going to be tribals, who account for 40 per cent of the population in Attapady.
Four years ago too, Kerala made an attempt to build a dam of 4.5 tmc capacity on the Siruvani river. At that time too, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had strongly protested against the move.
Now, Kerala has secured the clearance of the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) in the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for formulating the terms of reference for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the project. On August 11 and 12, the EAC met in New Delhi and took its decision, after considering the Attapady irrigation project as an additional item.
The way in which the nod has been secured itself has become a subject of controversy as Tamil Nadu feels that the exercise has been carried out in “unwarranted haste.”
The Chief Minister has also contested the observation in the minutes of the EAC meeting that the Union Ministry wrote several times to the State government.
Besides, what has added to the worry of Tamil Nadu is the “paucity of information” regarding the project. Officials in the Public Works Department maintain that no detailed project report has been shared with them by their Kerala counterparts and whatever information has been provided is “sketchy.”
Internationally and within India, it has been the practice of upper riparian states to take lower-riparian states into confidence before going ahead with any project on an inter-state river.
As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, the stakes are quite high. Though any dam downstream of the existing dam will not affect the availability of drinking water for Coimbatore, it is the stand of Tamil Nadu that the present proposal can have an adverse bearing on its farmers who are dependent on the Bhavani, which may be affected by the reduced contribution from the Siruvani, as is being feared. As many as 4.5 lakh acres are being irrigated in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode districts. In addition, there can be some impact on drinking water supply for parts of the western districts,
This is why Tamil Nadu strongly feels that the Cauvery Management Board and the Water Regulation Committee should be constituted at the earliest.
When the two bodies are in place, no State in the Cauvery Basin will be able to implement any project without the consent of others. Not just that. They will also be able to respond swiftly to situations relating to the realisation of poor inflow of water. So far, the Central government has been silent on this.
