AIADMK’s general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Saturday asked the DMK to explain why it had “not been urging” its ally, Congress, the ruling party in Karnataka, to release Cauvery water as stipulated in the Supreme Court’s judgment of 2018.
In a statement, he pointed out that the DMK had been having an alliance with the Congress since 2004 and it had taken part in recent conclaves of the Opposition in Patna and Bengaluru.
He accused Chief Minister M.K.Stalin of commencing the water release from the Mettur dam on June 12 without collecting data from the Meteorological department and only on the basis of the dam having the water level of over 110 ft. [Actually, on June 12, the water level stood at 103.35 ft]. During the Kuruvai cultivation season, the water requirement for an extent of 5.25 lakh acres was 125 thousand million cubic feet (TMC), of which Mettur would provide 99.74 TMC and groundwater, the rest. The release would commence from 3,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) and it would gradually be stepped up to 18,000 cusecs. But, this month, only a portion of 10,000 cusecs was issued, leading to the adverse impact on the crop, Mr Palaniswami contended.
