The Kaveri Dispute

	Karnataka	Tamil Nadu	Kerala	Pondichery	Total
Basin Area (in km²)	34,273	43,868	2,866	148	81,155
Drought area in the basin (in km²)	21,870	12,790	--	--	34,660
Contribution of state (in TMC)	425	252	113	-	790
What they demand	465	566	100	9.3	1140.3
What TN demands	177	566	5	--	748
2007 tribunal verdict	270	419	30	7	726

The Kaveri Dispute

The waters of the river Kaveri has been the bone of contention of a serious conflict between Karnataka and the state of Tamil Nadu. Over the years, the dispute has become increasingly complex both due to the stubborn stances of the parties involved.

While TN historically enjoyed a vastly grater usage of waters compared to Karnataka, Karnataka on the other hand sees it as a grave in justice that has been forced upon it.

After decades of negotiations failed the Govt. of India finally constituted a tribunal in 1990 to look into the matter. The tribunal has been hearing arguments of all the parties involved for the last 16 years and yet, a settlement has eluded the dispute.

The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal gave its verdict on Feb 5^th, 2007, Allocating 419 TMC of water annually to TN, 270 TMC annually to Karnataka, 30 TMC to Kerala, and 7TMC to Pondicherry.

History:

Pre-Independence:

1. Mysore planned to revive its irrigation projects, this met with resistance from the then Madras Presidency. Mysore made a representation to the British government as a result if which the 1892 agreement was signed. As per this agreement, Mysore was required to obtain Madras' consent for any water it wished to utilize or for any project it wished to undertake to utilize the waters. In other words, Madras was vested with powers to veto any plans Mysore state might draw up for utilization of the waters.

2. Mysore under Nalvadi KrishnaRaja Wodeyar and Sir MV came up with a plan to construct a dam at Kannambadi Village to hold up 41.5 TMC of water. Madras did not give consent to this and had its own plans of a dam at Mettur with a capacity of 80TMC.The dispute continued.

After a reference to the Govt. of India, permission was accorded to Mysore but with a reduced capacity of 11TMC. The foundation was however laid to suite the earlier desired full storage. This raised TN’s hackles and the disputes continued. As a result the British govt. referred the matter to arbitration under Rule IV of the 1892 agreement. Sir H D Griffin was appointed arbitrator and M. Nethersole, the Inspector General of Irrigation in India, was made the Assessor. They awarded the decision on 12^th May 1914 which held up the earlier decision of the Govt. of India and allowed Mysore to go ahead with the construction of the dam up to 11TMC.

However, both Mysore and TN completed their projects at Kannambadi and Mettur respectively. While Mysore constructed the dam at Kannambadi to a capacity of 45TMC, Madras built the Mettur Dam to hold 93.5 TMC.

Post-Independence:

After independence in 1947, and the reorganization of the states in 1956, Coorg the birth place of Kaveri became part of Mysore state. With all these changes, Kerala and Pondicherry also jumped into the fray, as Kabini, one of the main tributaries of Kaveri now originated in Kerala. Pondicherry at the tail of the river depended on Kaveri for its drinking purpose and some minimal Irrigation.

By the late 60s, both states and the Central government began to realize the gravity of the situation as the 50 year run of the 1924 agreement was soon coming to an end. Negotiations were started in right earnest and discussions continued for almost 10 years.

70s

While discussions continued, a Cauvery Fact Finding Committee (CFFC) was constituted. The brief of the CFFC was to inspect the ‘ground’ realities and come up with a report. The CFFC came up with a preliminary report in 1972 and a final report in 1973. Inter state discussions were held based on this report. Finally in 1974, a draft agreement which also provided for the creation of a Cauvery Valley Authority was prepared by the Ministry of Irrigation. This draft however, was not ratified.

While these discussions went on, the irrigated lands of TN had grown enormously while those of Karnataka (1973 from Mysore state to Karnataka) had stagnated. TN’s irrigated area stood at 24 lakh acres while that of Karnataka at 4.2 lakh acres.

In 1976, after a series of discussions between the two states and the Central government chaired by Jagjeevan Ram, the then Irrigation Minister, a final draft was prepared based on findings of the CFFC. This draft was accepted by all states and the Government also made an announcement to that effect in Parliament.

Tamil Nadu came under President’s rule soon after that and the agreement was put on the backburner. When President’s rule was lifted AIADMK came to power in TN and the dispute took a new turn.

The TN government rejected the draft agreement which was ratified with its own consent. It now started insisting that the 1924 agreement had only provided for an extension and not a review. It began insisting that status quo be restored and everyone go back to the agreements of 1892 and 1924.

This however, did not cut ice with Karnataka which had throughout maintained that those agreements were partisan and had been signed between unequal partners.

When Karnataka began constructing the Harangi dam at Kushalnagara in Coorg, it again met with resistance from the TN govt. TN went to court demanding the constitution of a Tribunal. It also demanded the immediate stoppage of the construction work at the dam site.

As a result of TN’s protest, Karnataka had to fund the construction under the non-plan head and this led to strain on its finances.

80s

Later TN withdrew its case demanding the constitution of a tribunal and the two states started negotiating again. Several rounds of discussions were held in the 80s. The result was still, a stalemate. In 1986, a farmer’s association from Tanjavur in TN moved the Supreme Court demanding the constitution of a tribunal. While this case was still pending, the two states continued many rounds of talks. This continued till April of 1990 and yet yielded no results.

90s and Beyond

As the eighties drew to a close and into the nineties, the bilateral negotiations between Karnataka and TN were not going anywhere. To make matters worse, both states had unilaterally continued to expand their irrigated area without any consensus. While TN's irrigated area had grown to 28 lakh acres, Karnataka's had grown to 11.2 lakh acres.

The Supreme Court then directed the government headed by Prime Minister V.P. Singh to constitute a tribunal and refer all disputes to it. A three man tribunal was thus constituted. The tribunal was headquartered at New Delhi and was to be headed by Justice Chittatosh Mookerjee.

The four states presented their demands to the tribunal as under

· Karnataka - claimed 465 TMC ft as its share

· Kerala - wants 99.8 TMC ft as its share

· Pondicherry - claims 9.3 TMC ft

· TN - wants the flows to be ensured in accordance with the terms of the agreements of 1892 and 1924

Interim Award and Riots:

Soon after the tribunal was set up, TN demanded a mandatory injunction on Karnataka for the immediate release of water and other relief. This was dismissed by the tribunal. TN now went back to the Supreme Court which directed the tribunal to reconsider TN’s plea.

The tribunal reconsidered TN’s plea and gave an interim award on 25 June 1991. In coming up with this award, the tribunal calculated the average inflows into TN over a period of 10 years between 1980–81 and 1989–90. The extreme years were ignored for this calculation. The average worked out to 205 TMC which Karnataka had to ensure reached TN in a water year. The award also stipulated the weekly and monthly flows to be ensured by Karnataka for each month of the water year. The tribunal further directed Karnataka not to increase it irrigated land area from the existing 11.2 lakh acres.

Karnataka deemed this extremely inimical to its interests and issued an ordinance seeking to annul the tribunal’s award. The Supreme Court now stepped in at the President’s instance and struck down the Ordinance issued by Karnataka. It upheld the tribunal’s award which was subsequently gazetted by the Government of India on 11 December 1991.

Karnataka was thus forced to accept the interim award and widespread demonstrations and violence broke out in parts of Karnataka and TN following this.

In the violence that ensued around 20 people were killed and dozens injured. This instance of rioting remains the worst case of violence in Karnataka's history and the losses were estimated at around Rs 19 crore. Thousands of Tamil families had to flee from Bangalore in fear of being attacked. The violence which was centered mainly in some parts of Bangalore lasted for about a month and most schools and educational institutions in Bangalore remained closed during this period. Chennai and few other parts of TN also saw sporadic instances of violence during this period.

The Crisis of '95–'96

In 1995, the monsoons failed badly in Karnataka and it found itself hard pressed to fulfill the interim order. TN approached the Supreme Court demanding the immediate release of at least 30 TMC. The Supreme Court refused to entertain TN's petition and asked it to approach the tribunal. The tribunal examined the case and recommended that Karnataka release 11 TMC. Karnataka pleaded that 11 TMC was unimplementable in the circumstances that existed then. T N now went back to the Supreme Court demanding that Karnataka be forced to obey the tribunal's order. The Supreme Court this time recommended that the then Prime Minister, Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao intervene and find a political solution. The Prime Minister convened a meeting with the Chief Ministers of the two states and recommended that Karnataka release 6 TMC instead of the 11TMC that the tribunal ordered.

Karnataka complied with the decision of the Prime Minister and the issue blew over.

Constitution of the CRA

Karnataka had all through maintained that the interim award was not 'scientific' and was inherently flawed. It had, nevertheless, complied with the order except during 1995–96 when rains failed. What complicated matters was that the Interim award was ambiguous on distress sharing and there was no clear cut formula that everyone agreed upon to share the waters in the case of failure of the monsoon.

In 1997, the Government proposed the setting up of a Cauvery River Authority which would be vested with far reaching powers to ensure the implementation of the Interim Order. These powers included the power to take over the control of dams in the event of the Interim Order not being honored. Karnataka strongly protested the proposal to set up such an authority.

The Government, then made several modifications to the powers of the Authority and came up with a new proposal. The new proposal greatly reduced the executive powers of the Authority. The power to take over control of dams was also done away with. Under this new proposal, the Government set up two new bodies, viz., Cauvery River Authority and Cauvery Monitoring Committee.

The Cauvery River Authority would comprise of the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of all four states (Karnataka, TN, Pondicherry, and Kerala) and was headquartered in New Delhi. The Cauvery Monitoring Committee on the other hand, was an expert body which comprised of engineers, technocrats and other officers who would take stock of the 'ground realities' and report to the CRA.

The 2002 high drama

In the summer of 2002, things once again came to a head as the monsoon failed in both Karnataka and TN. Reservoirs in both states fell to record low levels and inevitably tempers rose. The sticking point yet again, as in 1995–96 was how the distress would be shared between the two states. The tribunal had overlooked this crucial point when it gave the interim award and it had returned once again to haunt the situation.

A meeting of the CRA was called on 27^th August, but TN Chief Minister walked out of the meeting. he focus now shifted to the SC which ordered Karnataka to release 1.25 TMCft of water every day unless CRA revised it. Karnataka started the release of water but pressed for another meeting of the CRA which was fixed for 8 September. The TN Chief Minister this time boycotted the meet due to insufficient notice. A minister from the cabinet attended it. The CRA revised the Court's order from 1.25 TMCft to 0.8 TMCft per day.

This time the Karnataka Govt. in open defiance refused to release water. TN escalated to the SC and Karnataka release water for a few days, but stopped it again as protesting farmers committed suicide by jumping into the reservoir and the protests seemed to take a dangerous turn.

The center now stepped in and asked Karnataka to release the water. This also however, fell on deaf ears. The SC meanwhile, in response to TN's petition asked the CRA for details of the water release and water levels in the reservoirs. TN flatly refused to grant permission to inspect its reservoirs and this move, coupled with the earlier boycott or CRA meets came to severe criticism from all quarters. TN chief minister finally gave in. the SC ordered Karnataka on 3 October to comply with the CRA and resume the release of water.

Karnataka once again refused to obey the orders TN slapped another contempt petition on Karnataka and soon it degenerated into a “free for all” situation. The belligerence soon hit a crescendo and while some groups in TN called for a stoppage of power from the Neyveli Power station to Karnataka as a tit-for-tat measure, a Pan-Tamil militant outfit (a month or so later) went ahead and blasted a major power transformer supplying power to the neighboring states of Karnataka and TN.

The Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr. S M Krishna on the other hand, fearing that the situation might spiral out of control, embarked on a padayatra from Bangalore to Mandya.

In the meanwhile, TN's contempt suit on Karnataka came up for hearing on 1 November. The Karnataka government, by now saw the spectra of a harsh rebuke and action by the SC, as a last effort to salvage the situation, decided to resume the release of water while at the same time compensating its own farmers for the loss. The SC deferred the case to 15 November and on 15 November, while reserving its comment on Karnataka, censured the TN Chief Minister for attacking the CRA and the PM and ordered TN to tender an unqualified apology. TN complied with it and tendered the apology.

By now, with Karnataka’s resumption of water release, compensation of its farmers and the first signs of the arrival of the N-E monsoon in TN, frayed tempers were on the wane. A couple of months later, the SC in an exceptionally stinging censure, pulled it up the Karnataka government for its defiance of the Courts. The Karnataka Chief Minister tendered an unqualified apology and soon the dispute blew over.

Most importantly and equally unfortunately, once again the dispute had blown over without any agreement being reached on the issue of 'distress-sharing'.

The term of the tribunal was initially set to expire in August of 2005. However, in the light of the many arguments the court was yet to hear, the tribunal filed a request for extension of its term. The extension was granted and the tribunal's term was extended for another year until Sep 2006.

Early in 2006, a major controversy erupted over the 'Assessor's report' that was apparently 'leaked' to the press. The report had suggested a decision which Karnataka summarily rejected. Another major controversy erupted when just a couple of months before the September 2006 deadline, the tribunal recommended the formation of another expert committee to study the 'ground realities' yet again. This was unanimously and vehemently opposed by all the four states party to the dispute. The states contended that this move would further delay a judgment which has already been 16 years in the making. None the less, the new expert committee was formed and carried out its brief.

Judgment

The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal announced its final verdict on February 5, 2007.

According to its verdict, TN gets 419 TMC ft of Cauvery water while Karnataka gets 270 TMC. The actual release of water by Karnataka to TN is to be 192 TMC ft annually. Further, Kerala will get 30 TMC and Pondicherry 7 TMC. The government of Karnataka unhappy with the decision filed a revision petition before the tribunal seeking a review.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaveri_River_Water_Dispute