Chennai: Forward of the meeting polls in Karnataka, the friction over the unresolved water-sharing dispute between the state and Tamil Nadu over the Mekedatu dam challenge on the Cauvery basin has resurfaced but once more.
The explanation this time is Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s 2023-2024 state price range the place he stated that efforts could be made to start out work on the challenge. Final yr, Rs 1,000 crore was put aside for commencing the development of the Rs 9,000 crore reservoir.
The proposed dam with a capability of 67.16 thousand million cubic ft. (tmc ft) will assist produce 400 MW of hydro energy. Extra importantly, the challenge has been pitched to fulfill ingesting water wants of Bengaluru and the neighbouring suburbs and Ramnagara.
Tamil Nadu — the decrease riparian state — has claimed that the challenge is in opposition to the curiosity of the state’s water requirement. “Earlier than each election, that is an agenda that Karnataka brings up. The matter is in courtroom, and we are going to legally transfer in opposition to this,” Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) organisational secretary R.S. Bharathi advised ThePrint on Bommai’s comment.
“The decrease riparian state has to offer its no-objection for any challenge that comes up on the Cauvery as per the Cauvery tribunal and Supreme Courtroom order,” G. Sundarrajan, an activist with environmental organisation Poovulagin Nanbargal (Associates of the Earth), advised ThePrint.
In 2018, the Supreme Courtroom revised the 2007 Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) and introduced down Tamil Nadu’s share from 192 tmcft to 177.25 tmcft. Karnataka noticed its share of water go up by an extra 14.75 tmcft of water, of which 4.75 tmcft was put aside to fulfill the ingesting and home functions of Bengaluru.
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What’s the Mekedatu challenge?
The challenge is deliberate at Mekedatu, which is simply 4 km from Tamil Nadu border on the confluence of Cauvery and its tributary Arkavathi.
Tamil Nadu, which is embroiled in water disputes with Kerala over Mullaperiyar dam, faces similar problem with Karnataka over the development of Mekedatu dam on the Cauvery basin.
Initially mooted in 1948, the Mekedatu challenge has over time seen a number of opposition and modifications. However since 2013, it gained widespread curiosity in Karnataka. In 2015, the then Siddaramaiah authorities in its price range recommended an in depth challenge report for development of a “balancing reservoir”.
Through the years the matter has additionally gained political significance. In 2022, below the theme “Namma Neeru, Namma Hakku” (Our water, Our proper), the Congress intensified political strain on the BJP authorities in Karnataka by conducting a padayatra demanding the development of Mekedatu dam.
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Troubles across the challenge in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu has been accusing Karnataka of not releasing the common share of water in time.
In response to Sundarrajan, the dam is proposed close to the Cauvery South Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a pristine forest space. “Constructing a dam there’ll jeopardise the surroundings.”
The challenge is more likely to submerge round 4,996 hectares of land, together with about 4,800 hectares of forest and wildlife land. “The wealthy wildlife will get affected by this challenge,” Sundarrajan stated, including that no matter water the Mettur dam will get now could be from the rainfall within the area between Kabini Hemavati and Mettur.
If Mekedatu is constructed then, he claimed, this can have an effect on the influx into Mettur dam.
In 2017, when Tamil Nadu was going via one of many worst droughts in 140 years, the farmers from Thanjavur or Tanjore sat on a 107-day protest in Delhi demanding launch of Cauvery water.
“Karnataka is already not abiding by the Supreme Courtroom or Cauvery Water Administration Board’s path of releasing a set quantity of water to Tamil Nadu each month,” P. Ayyankannu, who led the farmers’ protest in Delhi, advised ThePrint.
“Solely when there may be flooding within the area on account of extra rainfall, do they launch water. Throughout peak summer season, water is just not launched,” he stated. “If Mekedatu is constructed, we gained’t get water in any respect and the farmers in Tamil Nadu might be destroyed.”
Tamil Nadu has been getting water from three sources — river Kabini, catchment areas of Krishnarajasagar reservoir; the sub-basins of Shimsha, Arkavathi and Suvarnavathi rivers; from Krishnaraja Sagar Dam and from Kabini dam.
At an all-party assembly in 2021, Chief Minister M.Okay. Stalin accused Karnataka of making an attempt to cease the one free flowing path of the Cauvery to Tamil Nadu by developing the Mekedatu. The opposite two sources are already managed by dams.
Citing the explanation for the opposition to the Mekedatu dam, Stalin had stated, “If the brand new dam is constructed, Karnataka will launch solely residual portions of water to Tamil Nadu.”
On 18 February, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) chief Vaiko urged the Tamil Nadu authorities to forestall Karnataka’s plan of going forward to assemble the dam.
“Within the final 48 years, we’ve misplaced cultivation in 15.87 lakh hectares, whereas Karnataka was capable of enhance its space of cultivation to 38.25 lakh hectares from 9.96 lakh hectares. If the Mekedatu challenge is allowed, the Cauvery delta will turn into a desert,” he stated.
The Central Water Fee (CWC) has not processed the Detailed Mission Report (DPR) of the challenge but. No matter the noise each the states make due to their political compulsions, it’s nonetheless a great distance earlier than the challenge goes off the drafting board.
The CWC will course of the DPR solely after the Cauvery Water Administration Authority provides approval to the challenge after taking consent of all Cauvery-basin states. There has not been a lot ahead motion on the challenge since then.
Dispute relationship again to pre-Independence
The dispute over Cauvery water goes again to the early Eighteen Nineties. The water sharing between the princely state of Mysore and the Madras Presidency was primarily based on 1892 and 1924 agreements.
Regardless of the opposition from Tamil Nadu to the development of two dams over the Cauvery between 1959 until finish of Nineteen Sixties, Karnataka managed to construct its two dams.
In 1974, stating that the 1924 settlement that was for 50 years had ended, Karnataka wished to cease releasing water to totally different beneficiary states. However the central authorities’s intervened and a Cauvery Reality Discovering Committee (CFFC) was arrange.
Primarily based on this, all events concerned — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry — arrived at an understanding and a draft was arrange in 1976.
Sadly, the draft was not authorized as Tamil Nadu got here below the President’s rule. As soon as the brand new AIADMK authorities got here to energy, issues have been again to sq. one with no amicable resolution.
Primarily based on a Supreme Courtroom attraction by a farmers’ affiliation in 1986 to represent a tribunal, the V.P. Singh authorities arrange the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in 1990.
In 1998, with the Prime Minister as its Chairperson, and Chief Ministers of the 4 states as members, a Cauvery River Authority (CRA) was fashioned and concurrently a Cauvery Monitoring Committee was additionally arrange comprising specialists who would give suggestion to the CRA.
The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal submitted its 1,000-page closing report in 2007, with suggestion of suggestion on water sharing. In 2018, the Supreme Courtroom revised the water share and stuck a validity interval of 15 years earlier than revisiting the share.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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