Tamil Nadu is already celebrating the Centre’s notification of the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT), but there is nothing on record to show that the celebration time has arrived. If anything, the reverse could well be the case, as the much-delayed Gazette notification by the Centre, coming into force with immediate effect, may be impeded by pending cases against the final Award in the Apex Court, and the possible unwillingness on the part of Tamil Nadu to blink first on that score.
As has to be the case in such matters, the Centre’s notification has officially annulled the existence of the 50-year-long agreement between the then Madras Presidency Government and the princely State of Mysore, in 1924. The agreement was at the centre of the Cauvery water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka when the term concluded. For effect, the notification has also rendered an earlier accord of 1892, which anyway the 1924 agreement had superseded, equally inoperable.
With Karnataka purportedly at the receiving end, that too in an election year, the temptation for any Government in Bengaluru would be to cite the notification selectively, and the pending court cases otherwise. That is at least until the Supreme Court had disposed off the pending cases, as having been superseded by the Centre’s notification since.
The Tribunal fixed the usable quantum of waters for sharing, based on 50 per cent dependability, at 740 tmcft, across the river basin, from Karnataka where it originates, and through the river-system in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry, whose Karaikal enclave falls in the Cauvery delta. Of this, 419 tmcft was fixed as Tamil Nadu’s share, followed by Karnataka 270 tmcft, Kerala 30 tmcft and Puducherry 7 tmcft. However, the final award put the outflow for Tamil Nadu from Karnataka at the inter-State point at Billigundulu at 192 tmcft, down from 205 tmcft allotted under the Tribunal’s Interim Award earlier.
’Distress sharing’
What is of greater significance was the final Award coming up with a proportionate sharing of distress in years of less rain, as has been the case on many occasions ever since the dispute broke out in the Seventies, when the 1924 agreement was to come up for review at the expiry of the internally set, 50-year deadline. The interim award had skirted the issue, but since then farmers in both States have been exposed what this ’distress’ means to the other in poor rainfall years, and how they needed to be be understanding and appreciative of each other’s compulsions.
The Centre’s Notification under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, under which the Tribunal was set up in the first place, also provides for the setting up of the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) and the Cauvery Regulation Committee (CRC), on the lines of those handling water-sharing among the riparian States of the Bhakra-Beas river systems in the North. Respectively, the two bodies will replace the multi-partite Cauvery River Authority (CRA), chaired by the Prime Minister and with the riparian Chief Ministers as members, and the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), comprising officials from the respective States and the Centre.
The notification now means that the CRA and the CMC are gone, and the CMB and CRC in their place are yet to be constituted. It remains to be seen if Karnataka, where there has been political unanimity against sharing waters with Tamil Nadu, where it has been a blame-game all through, would move the Supreme Court again, challenging the legality or constitutional validity of the Notification, on issues that had not been agitated earlier.
In an election year, it is a live-issue in Karnataka, particularly in the Cauvery delta districts in the South, including the capital city of Bengaluru, the nation’s ’IT capital’, which depends on the river for meeting its drinking water needs, among others. In Tamil Nadu, where pan-Tamil sentiments are seeking a political centre-stage ahead of the parliamentary polls next year, the Cauvery water dispute forms the livelihood core of electoral issues while much of the rest of the identity agendas are owe to sentiments and emotions.
Poll year protests and more
It remains to be seen what Karnataka intends doing on the legal front, as also the political front, where loud protests have emanated from the BJP-led Government. With the Budget session of Parliament on, and those of the four State Assemblies expected to commence in the coming weeks, the Congress, the BJP and the two Communists as the ’national parties’ would have to do a fine balancing-act. After a point, even the DMK and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu would have to adopt the moderate path, but without yielding the political ground to each other or peripheral pan-Tamil groups.
Memories of the anti-Tamil riots in Karnataka, which left hundreds dead and their properties and businesses burnt down in the early Nineties, would command caution in their political conduct within Tamil Nadu. Similar would be the case with Karnataka political parties, as a substantial number of people with their origins in the State are residents of Tamil Nadu for long. They are sparsely spread across Tamil Nadu, and are vulnerable to attacks like their Tamil brethren, who are highly concentrated in places like Bengaluru and Kolar, but could not escape mob wrath.
Tamil Nadu could be in a piquant situation if the Centre failed to notify the promised bodies to manage and monitor water-sharing, including availability, or Karnataka refuses to join them, pending any legal move that they may seek to initiate. With the Centre’s Notification having rendered the CRA and the CMC infructuous, it remains to be seen how the Centre, Karnataka and the Supreme Court, if the third one is called upon to do so, act and react to the emerging situation.
The river water disputes law says that the Tribunal is the final authority in matters of water-sharing as the one now between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Supreme Court, however, intervened even after the setting up of the Tribunal. At one stage in the early nineties, when the court was seized of the matter after the political initiatives of the Centre had failed, it directed then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao to initiate discussions among the four Chief Ministers. Yet, the ball went back to the court, after all.
If and when called upon to address the issue, the Centre and/or the Judiciary would have to address ’distress-sharing’ in greater detail than outlined in the Tribunal Award. The Final Award, hence the Notification, provides for 740 tmcft as the average availability to be counted in for sharing, on proportionate basis, based on the quantum already allocated.
In years when the availability is lower than 740 tmcft, Karnataka could cry, ’distress’. Even in years when the share is woefully low, the other three riparian States could seek their share, after providing 10 tmcft for environmental purposes, under the Award, for re-charging. This time round, Karrnataka, for instance, had said it could not share available waters with Tamil Nadu, as they did not have enough to quench the thirst of Bengaluru. The general principle is that available river waters should first go to meeting drinking water requirements, and then only could be diverted for irrigation.
New reservoirs
Yet, the Award could now facilitate Tamil Nadu build downstream reservoirs, particularly to irrigate the tail-end areas, where the drift of the water released upstream does not have the required draft in poor rainfall years. It would also mean that excess water emptying into the seas in surplus rainwater years could be stored for the next season’s use. Karnataka too may have the freedom, but any revival of attempts to deepen the Cauvery system tanks and canals, to manipulate the storage in the reservoirs, as Tamil Nadu suspected was being attempted earlier, could have consequences.
The Notification now should encourage the two States to work with the Centre and the other two riparian stake-holders, to revive the proposal to build an additional reservoir, to store the excess waters in substantial to excess rainwater years, to be shared among them. Karnataka wanted it within its territory and under its management. Tamil Nadu wanted it closer to its territory, if not within the State’s border, to minimise the evaporation losses that it would have to bare. It also wanted the Centre to manage the new reservoir.
With the Notification now out, the proposed Cauvery Management Board, when constituted, should take it up as a priority. After all, irrigation water has become a natural resource, and cannot be allowed to go waste. Better or worse still, its usage and distribution cannot be arbitrary. It is not unlikely thus that the nation, particularly the Judiciary as the watch-dog of the Constitution and the conscience-keeper of an agitated people, would be watching - both in terms of intention and implementation!
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation)
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