Saturday’s bandh in Tamil Nadu against the Karnataka Government’s move to construct a dam across the Cauvery river at Mekedatu is being seen as a wake up call for the Union Government to speed up the process of resolving the Cauvery Water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. “The DMK politicised the Cauvery water issue and over the years it has turned out to be a political game plan between the DMK and the AIADMK. There is no possibility of a permanent political solution for the Cauvery Dispute under the present conditions and this has all the potential to escalate into another war of secession against the Centre by Tamil Nadu,” said senior scribe N Kalyanasundaram who has covered the issues since early 1960.
He said past water scarcities in Tamil Nadu, when the States were ruled by the Congress, were non-events. “I have seen with my own eyes the then Chief Minister K Kamaraj lifting up the telephone, calling his Karnataka counterpart and resolving the issue within minutes. It was only with the advent of the DMK, the Cauvery issue got politicised. With the formation of the AIADMK by late MGR, the Cauvery ended up as a vote mobilising issue,” he said.
The Centre has failed to play a constructive role and sort out the issue. “Though the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal delivered its final verdict in 2007, the UPA Government got its gazetted only in 2013. And no action has been taken till date to constitute the Cauvery Management Board and the Cauvery Water Regulation Zone as per the CWDT verdict.
“This is also not going to happen in the near future. The BJP government knows well that any move which is not acceptable to the people of Karnataka would be detrimental to the interests of the party in the State. In Tamil Nadu it has nothing to lose as the party is no major presence,” said Kalyanasundaram. According to M S Menon, former director general of Central water commission, the only option available to the centre is to nationalise the country’s rivers and order the linking of Hemavathi, Netravati and Cauvery along with inter linking of all major rivers in India.
The National Water Development Authority under the Ministry of water resources has finalised a proposal to divert surplus water from Netravati basin to water deficient Cauvery basin in Tamil Nadu, pointed out Dr Kalyanaraman, former executive of Asian Development Bank and director of Saraswathi Research Centre, a Chennai think tank.
“Initially it was thought that a total of 6 MW power would be required to pump the water from Hemavathi basin to Cauvery. But it is possible to transfer the water through a tunnel of 8 km long. Entrust the job to companies specialising in boring lengthy tunnels. Here in Chennai, 11 tunnel boring machines are making 9 km long tunnel underneath the city for the Metro Rail,” said Dr Kalyanaraman.