- Introduction
- History of the Kaveri water issue
- Why confusion over creation of Tribunal?
- Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal(CWDT)
- 2012 and the final showdown:
- The future, what lies ahead:
Introduction
- The peninsular rivers as one must have studied in geography , are depended on the annual monsoon. So their flow is dependent on the success/failure of monsoon.
- This year the monsoons were not even close the expectations.
- So the states that have been sharing the river waters have come under extra pressure to save their farmers, among which, the already heightened battle is the Cauvery water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
- This issue is definitely not new and has been raging for more than 5 decades now.
Terms
Tmcft | Thousand million cubic feet. Unit of volume which means total water released. |
Cusecs | Cubic feet per second. Unit of flow which means the water flow released continuously. |
History of the issue
- The river Cauvery has been shared by the states under 2 agreements – The Interstate agreements of 1872 and 1924.
- All was well, till the late 1960s when Karnataka wanted to build 4 new reservoirs in the tributaries of Cauvery.
- The Planning commission did not approve to give funds and neither did the Central government.
- But Karnataka state went ahead with the building of the reservoirs with its own funds. These reservoirs were
- Harangi
- Kabini
- Hemavathi
- Suvarnavathy
- This diverted some of the water of Cauvery due to which Tamil Nadu protested.
- It directed the Centre to create a Tribunal.
- But since the Centre did not create one, Tamilnadu moved the SC to order the centre. The tribunal was finally formed in 1990.
Why confusion over creation of Tribunal?
Article 262 | neither the Supreme Court nor any court shall exercise jurisdiction in water dispute between states. |
But the Supreme Court commented that it can however order the Centre to create a Tribunal which it is supposed to do so under the Art.262 and the Interstate Water Disputes Act,1956.
Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal(CWDT)
- To cut short to the story, the CWDT came up with its final order in 2007, giving
region | Water (tmcft) |
TN | 419 |
Karnataka | 270 |
Kerala | 30 |
Puducherry | 7 |
- Both Karnataka and Tamilnadu contested this CWDT order in the Supreme Court via Special Leave Petitions (SLPs), which are still pending.
- This has prevented the Centre from publishing the CWDT award in the gazette(which means it will implement the award).
- In the meanwhile, because of the long time the CWDT took to give its decision, it gave an interim order in 1991 itself for the riparian states.
- To implement this interim measure, the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) and the Cauvery Monitoring Committee(CMC) were formed.
2012 and the final showdown:
- Among all this drama, confusion and powerplays there emerged a new problem.
- The CWDT did not come up with a formula for situations when the flow in Cauvery was low(meaning a drought kind situation).
- This is why the issue has flared up so much in 2012 as this year Karnataka has refused to release water on this basis.
Karnataka side |
Tamil Nadu side |
|
|
- Amid this the Supreme Court had asked the 2 Chief Ministers to meet up and try to finalize on the issue but that too failed.
- Supreme Court also asked the Central government whether it had any intention to publish the CWDT tribunal award for which the Centre has replied that it will publish the award by December end but it has not done it.
The future, what lies ahead:
- The Centre must publish the CWDT order as soon as possible.
- In the middle of all this the CWDT chairman has resigned, and no new chairman has been assigned yet. So the new chairman has to be assigned who has to be going-to-retire SC judge.
- The CRA and CMC were only interim measures and thus when the award is published they will cease to exist. A new Cauvery Management Board (CMB) has to be formed to oversee the proper distribution of the river.
- The major cause for the confusion is the SLPs being admitted in the SC. They have been pending for the last 5 years. They must be done away with as soon as possible.
- Proper use of the Cauvery water by both sides so that they don’t become too dependent on the water.
- The water sharing formula in low flow years must be formed with as soon as possible.
Mock Questions
Q1. find Correct statements
1. The SC enjoys original jurisdiction over Interstate water disputes
2. Article 262 empowers the SC to create Tribunals for Interstate river dispute
- only 1 correct
- only 2 correct
- Both correct
- Both Wrong
Q2 The Kaveri river is shared between
1.TN
2.Karnataka
3.Kerala
4.Puducherry
answer choice:
a) 1,2
b)1,2,4
c)1,2,3
d)All the four
interview
- Suggest measures to solve Cauvery conflict.
- If case a stressful board, Why do you think your state deserves more water? Is it fair? (applicable to both states candidates)
Very very happy new year to all of you…..
thanks a lot sir!!
Hi Shivaram Bro , Ur article is Nice ,Hope u Come out with more Such Guest Posts
Cheers :)
Thank you..
Sagar,
Supreme Court commented that it can however order the Centre to create a Tribunal which it is supposed to do so under the Art.262 and the Interstate Water Disputes Act,1956.
Supreme court can order the centre to create tribunals…it cant directly create tribunals….so answer should be D
Recently there was a discussion on cauvery water in Bangalore,which was highlighted by an water resources engineer of Karnataka state and attended by many learned people.Finally after the discussion the engineer says the CWDT,if implemented politically will be a colossal injustice to Karnataka,even when objections by Karnataka to the CWDT is still pending in the supreme court.And the supreme court knowing the injustice has left this major CWDT implementation to politicians to decide.And also the engineer comments that TN politicians/people are thankless and most heartless people in the world,because chennai gets FREE 15 tmc of water,on humanitarian grounds ,5tmc each from KARNATAKA,AP and MAHARASTRA from their quota of water from the telugu ganga project,and the 5tmc water from Maharastra to TN flows through Karnataka,courtesy,generous hearts of Karnataka people.Still these TN politicians quarrel like petty people just to show off politically to its people without any due regards.
Former President Sri.R.Venkataraman mentioned in one of his books,he wrote, on this cauvery issue,which the TN politicians shunned,because he had advocated TN to build check dam facility downstream of mettur dam where water was wasted always and make judicial storage/use of water in difficult times,than to always pick up petty quarrels with its neighbouring states for water.
Respected Lakshmi Narayan sir.
from your reply we are able to grasp some valuable points. before delve into my reply, i request you to excuse me for this delayed response. that engeneer may be right in his views because he belongs to Karnataka. if you want to express your thoughts in at most good fair, you should have heard the views of TN’s engeneer as well as the farmers, the most vandalised farmers of delta region because of the constitutional violations made by Karnataka in the past.
i am not trying to belittle your views, but am baffled that how that engeneer from the state in which the political leaders are interested in nothing but watching porn clips during the discussion in the assembly, who are still unable to fix their permenant chief minister, and importantly the leaders are known for violating the union and the apex courts order, able to say that our political leaders are petty people! this may provoke you. but am not framing anything on my own. this is known to every Indian. i would like to tell you that mrunal.org is an aspirants website. first we all are Indians. most of us are aspired to work under india. therefore while posting such replies, i think you need to be aware of the significance of “usage of propper diction”. its not fair to post the words such as ” TN people are thankless, heartless”, “TN politicians are petty people” and so forth. these kind of derogatory remarks should be avoided in a social space like this. we are hear to learn and extract the keystones, not to have a clash or to demoralise the integrity of another state. you air what ever you want in Karnataka, but i request you to keep your nerves while exerting in a public domain. kindly edit those superfluous phrases before posting.
thank you.
sir please give me an information about E-governance .
i dont understand relation between supreme courts role in the decision of tribunals award.
and what is special leave petition in this matter.plz explain.
Dear fellow aspirant,
It is important to remember that during a dispute both side would be having their own stories, facts and figures to justify their claim. Since the final CRA order has been gaetted, we should hope that both states would implement it amicably.
This issue will never solved hence Union Government should not shy away from threatening the states involved. Water is important to everyone hence Union Government should not impose the award decided by another tribunal which has to decide in time bound manner unlike the earlier one which took almost 17 years. Water Sharing , Riparian Issues and Water Scarcity , Allocation and what not are very important to India because We are facing a lot of challenges with regard to same issues even outside the country hence our stance has to be balanced and must factor in the external challenges and complexities.
it has prevented the centre from publishing cwdt award in the “gazette “.what does gazette mean here ?
Good One Everybody……
Just keep fighting and every one of us aspirants will be benefited as I notice that your views are very material, logical, quantifiable and moreover enjoyable.
hello to everyone,
In India, “Everyone is EQUAL and Everything is EQUAL”. we all are being INDIANS. Be Unity. joint the thoughts. we will get solution. Cauvery is our daughter. we need cauvery. just think as a future administrator. in my view , if can change the CWDT measuring method by ratio of income and outcome of state territory and amount of uses. we need farmers. in India have not only this problem. just think about all. we need to combine our thoughts. JAI HIND.
wow!!!!
I request everyone who are discussing about this my request is plz understand the position of both the states in Karnataka every one are suffering for drinking water provide water for drinking and then for irrigation TN people is taking 3 crops per year but Karnataka people 1-2 crops per year plz think abt this