Cauvery Water Regulation Committee to meet on October 12

The meeting will take place amid reports of Karnataka moving the Cauvery Authority and Supreme Court with a review petition against the September 29 directive

The outflow from the Karnataka reservoir after incessant rains in the Cauvery catchment area. | Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) will hold its next meeting on October 12 to take stock of the situation in the Cauvery basin.  

After the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) upheld on September 29 the CWRC’s direction given four days earlier to Karnataka to release 3,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu till October 15, the upper riparian State had announced that it would file a review petition before the Supreme Court and the Authority.  

Tamil Nadu is likely to demand at next week’s meeting, which will be 88th since the inception of the Authority and the CWRC, that Karnataka wipe out the shortfall of 12.185 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft), as worked out by the CWRC as on September 25, according to an official here. Keeping Biligundulu as the reference point, the calculation had been made based on the quantum of deficit in inflow to four Karnataka reservoirs which was 53.04%. This would be in addition to fulfilling the release stipulations for the month of October.  

The official adds that neither the CWRC nor the CWMA has urged so far Karnataka to make good the shortfall. Perhaps, the Central authorities would wait for heavy flows to occur in future for clearing the deficit, whereas the spirit of various judicial pronouncements, according to Tamil Nadu, is to have the shortfall wiped out then and there.

As on September 30 (at the end of southwest monsoon), Tamil Nadu realised around 45.2 tmc ft, of which September accounted for 13.6 tmc ft. In the first three days of the present month, the State received a little less than one tmc ft (0.89 tmc ft).  

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As on Wednesday, the four Karnataka reservoirs’ storage was 64.91 tmc ft, which was 57% of the total capacity of the reservoirs. However, the Mettur dam in Tamil Nadu was inching closer to the situation of having its shutters closed for irrigation with the storage of about 9.4 tmc ft. If the present trend of inflow and issue of 1,500 cubic feet per second (cusecs) and 6,500 cusecs continued, the dam would have to be shut down in a week or so.