Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has hinted that it may be difficult for the State to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu at this juncture as Karnataka is reeling under unprecedented drought.
He was speaking to presspersons after inaugurating the new court building complex in Mysuru on Saturday.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said it was not that the State did not want to release water, but was bogged down by acute distress with storage levels in all reservoirs being low.
“If we receive rain, we will definitely release water. Even in June and July, there was discharge from Karnataka,” he said. This is a period of drought and as such, the riparian States should share the distress, he said.
The Chief Minister said the State had recorded 43 per cent deficient rainfall between June 1 and July 15, as per the report of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC). He said this was the lowest rainfall recorded in the last 42 years. Crops in most districts in the State have withered and groundwater in many districts depleted. Fodder had become precarious, he said and added that drinking water was being supplied through tankers to over 700 villages.
Centre’s assistance had been sought to mitigate the drought situation. Karnataka is supposed to release 192 tmcft of water as per the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s final order. The water level at the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) on Saturday was 103.15 ft against the full reservoir level of 124.8 ft. While the gross storage capacity of the dam is 49.45 tmcft, the storage as on Saturday was 25.38 tmcft. The gross storage capacity in Kabini reservoir is 19.52 tmcft, against which the storage on Saturday was 19.19 tmcft, as per statistics from the KSNDMC.