Chennai: Karnataka has a history of defying the judicial orders passed by the Supreme Court in the Cauvery dispute, and these points should be highlighted in the Supreme Court hearing on Monday, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami told to a battery of senior lawyers (who will be representing TN in the high profile inter state dispute case) here on Saturday.
Palaniswami who discussed with his cabinet colleagues on the next legal steps to be taken in connection with the TN plea seeking contempt action against the Centre said the neighbouring state has been releasing a paltry amount of water at Billigundlu, the interstate point, thereby necessitating the formation of Cauvery water management board and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee to monitor the water sharing mechanism, he said.
Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, fisheries and law ministers D. Jayakumar and C.Ve. Shanmugam also took part in the discussion along with senior counsel Shekhar Naphade.
Public works department secretary S.K. Prabhakar also gave a presentation on the current depleting storage levels at Mettur dam and explained that the Kuruavi crops have already dried up in tail-end areas of Delta districts. The officials also briefed the government pleaders that for the third consecutive year short term Kurvai crop cultivation has been badly hit in TN.
It may be noted that Tamil Nadu moved the contempt plea in the apex court on March 31, seeking action against the Centre for allegedly failing to form the Cauvey Management Board and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee within six weeks as ordered by the court on February 16. On February 16, the Supreme Court raised the 270 tmcft share of Cauvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil Nadu's share, while compensating it by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin, saying the issue of drinking water has to be placed on a “higher pedestal”.
Recently DMK leader Durai Murugan wondered, why the TN lawyers failed to ask the Karnataka counterparts that why the groundwater potential of TN alone was discussed in the trial, ignoring the groundwater table of Karnataka, which factually has more, dams constructed across Cauvery.
