Cauvery Supervisory Committee to meet today

Committee, in its previous meeting was failed to arrive at any decision for want of adequate information which was to be made available by the river basin states

The Cauvery Supervisory Committee is meeting here on Monday to decide on the quantum of the river water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states by Karnataka.

The supervisory committee, in its previous meeting on September 12, had failed to arrive at any decision for want of adequate information which was to be made available by the river basin states.

It had asked them to provide the information by September 15.

Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had submitted to the committee data about withdrawal of water, its utilisation, variation in rainfall and its impact on the actual run-off over a period of 29 years in their respective Cauvery basin areas, according to a source.

Besides Shekhar, chief secretaries of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry and Central Water Commission chairman are members of the Committee, formed to implement final award of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

The Supreme Court had on September 5 asked Tamil Nadu to approach the committee, headed by Union Water Resources Ministry Secretary Shashi Shekhar, over the issue.

On that day, the apex court had asked Karnataka to release 15,000 cusecs of water per day for a period of 10 days to Tamil Nadu to ameliorate plight of farmers there.

The interim order led to protests in parts of Karnataka, especially in Mandya district, considered as the hotbed of Cauvery politics.

Meanwhile, Karnataka, which is the upper riparian state, approached the Supreme Court on September 11 seeking modification of its order.

A day later, the court modified the order, reducing the quantum of water to be released to Tamil Nadu and other states to 12,000 cusecs per day until September 20, when the SC will hear the matter again.