SC to hear Tamil Nadu's Cauvery Water plea against Karnataka on Monday
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday, August 17, a plea filed by the Tamil Nadu government seeking directions to the Karnataka government for the immediate release of Tamil Nadu's share of Cauvery water.
According to the apex court's cause list for August 17, the matter will come up before a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta.
The Supreme Court had said on August 12 that pleas filed in the matter by the Tamil Nadu government and others, including the DMK, would be taken up for hearing on August 17.
The Tamil Nadu government had earlier said the state was not receiving its due share of Cauvery water in a rain-deficient year. The Joseph Vijay-led state government approached the Supreme Court on August 3 seeking directions to Karnataka for immediate release of the water.
In its plea, the state government claimed that the quantum of water allocated to it by the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC), as well as the quantum actually released by Karnataka, was far less than due.
According to the state government, a CWRC meeting held on July 28 had directed Karnataka to release 3,500 cusecs for 15 days starting July 29. However, the water released at Biligundlu ranged between 158 and 550 cusecs between July 29 and August 2, it said.
A press release issued by the Tamil Nadu government said that as of August 3, the combined storage in Karnataka's KRS, Kabini, Harangi and Hemavathy reservoirs stood at 77.537 TMC, and that Karnataka would face no difficulty in proportionately releasing Tamil Nadu's due share.
Following recent rains in the catchment areas of the KRS and Kabini dams in Karnataka, the proportionate quantum of water to be realised at Biligundlu should be 26.954 TMC, the release said, adding that the Cauvery Water Management Authority's order allocating 4.536 TMC was "very less."
Karnataka has "failed" to share its due quantum of 26.954 TMC of water with Tamil Nadu, the state government's press release said.
(Inputs from PTI)