Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the principal riparian States of the Cauvery basin, can use the framework established by the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to evolve a distress-sharing formula, according to A. Ravindra, former Chief Secretary of Karnataka. Incidentally, the CWMA will meet in New Delhi on Friday (November 3).
In a telephone interview to The Hindu on Wednesday, Dr. Ravindra, who served as the Chief Secretary 21 years ago and faced contempt of court proceedings initiated by Tamil Nadu in the Supreme Court over Cauvery water release, said the technical mechanism available with the CWMA could supply all the data. “It can certainly assess the actual damage, crop loss and water levels. That can be the basis for arriving at a formula.”
The “issue” with the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s final order was that “it is all okay in a normal season. But we are dealing with a situation wherein there is a severe shortage. Rain has failed. In such a situation, the arrangement for the normal season does not work,” said the former IAS officer of the 1965 batch, who authored a monograph on the dispute in 2015.
