Editorial: The Cauvery Water Management Authority should act
Current Affairs for 20th September, 2023
Editorial: The Cauvery Water Management Authority should act
The notion of a distress-sharing formula has been in the air ever since the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal gave its interim order in 1991. The judicial bodies had referred to the principle of pro-rata sharing in times of distress.
The recent dispute seems to be over the deficit in inflows to the four Karnataka reservoirs (Krishnaraja Sagar, Kabini, Hemavathy and Harangi), as per Tamil Nadu.
While Karnataka has been maintaining that the overall distress situation cannot be calculated till the end of January and that the outcome of the northeast monsoon soon be taken into account deciding the sharing formula.
The pace and shortfall in inflows this monsoon season has cast a shadow over the catchment areas of the Cauvery River in Karnataka and Kerala. The CWMA also noted the shortfall in the upper riparian state's inflows while directing Karnataka to continue providing 5000 cusecs to Tamil Nadu till the end of September.
CWMA–
The Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu began in 1974. The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) was established in 1990 to resolve the issue.
CWDT issued its final award in February 2007, specifying water allocations among the four states in the Cauvery basin (Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry).
In 2018, the Supreme Court declared the Cauvery a national asset and largely upheld the water-sharing arrangements determined by the CWDT.
The central government notified the ‘Cauvery Water Management Scheme’ in June 2018, constituting the ‘Cauvery Water Management Authority’ and the ‘Cauvery Water Regulation Committee’.