Mysuru: Stating that the hearing in the Cauvery water sharing dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has reached its last leg in the Supreme Court, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda on Thursday expressed apprehension on the outcome of the judgement and felt that the state had lagged behind in the legal battle.
Taking stock of the water availability in Goruru reservoir in Hassan, Mr Deve Gowda said, "I do not know what will be the situation after the judgement is pronounced by the Supreme Court."
On the sharing of river Cauvery water, he said, Goruru reservoir, the lifeline of Hassan district, built across river Hemavathy, a tributary of river Cauvery, has been targeted for release of water to Tamil Nadu via Krishnaraja Sagar reservoir in Mandya district.
He came out with statistics saying that Goruru has water storage of 10.4 tmc feet while the discharge from the reservoir is about 6,000 cusecs and the inflow is about 2,000 cusecs.
Going by the discharge and inflow, Mr Gowda warned of a drinking water shortage for Hassan in the coming days and pointed out the recent incident of a farmer committing suicide over non-release of water to Tumakuru from Goruru reservoir.
The former Prime Minister also wanted to know what was the outcome of cloud seeding undertaken by the state government to induce rainfall in the wake of a deficient monsoon and quipped, "Have rains been lashing the region?"
Saying that the whole world had condemned the killing of journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, Mr Gowda termed her a gutsy woman and asked, "Did she ever work for herself?"
