Siddaramaiah, decided that Cauvery water can not shared with TamilNadu.
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The budget being presented by the Chief Minister tomorrow should also highlight steps to disburse retirement benefits to workers and staff of government owned AFT mills, who had taken voluntary retirement, but were now living in penury, he said. The apex court will hear the plea on 2 September.
The minister contended that it was not good on the part of the neighbouring State Government to seek water from Karnataka, when the State is facing severe distress owing to deficit south-west monsoon.
In its petition, the Tamilnadu government said there was a shortfall of 50.052 tmc ft of water from Karnataka reservoirs on the inter-State border – Biligundlu – as on 19 August, as per the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.
It accused Karnataka of using 53 tmc ft of water over and above its permitted quantity in the “alleged distress year”. “Both the state should share the water as per distress pro rata (proportional) basis”.
Karnataka Water Resources Minister MB Patil also said they can not meet Tamil Nadu’s demand because both the Kabini Reservoir and Krishna Raja Sagara Reservoir were facing acute shortage of water.
Karnataka’s priority was to ensure adequate storage of water for catering to the drinking water requirements in urban centres of Cauvery basin areas, the Minister said. Holding a press conference after a meeting all Members of Parliament representing Karnataka, central ministers from Karnataka, leaders of opposition parties and ministers coming from the Cauvery basin, the chief minister said, “All the members, who have attended this meeting, gave a suggestion that our government should explain and make a submission to the Supreme Court about what the ground reality is in Karnataka as far as water storage in our reservoirs is concerned”. “But today, the storage in all four reservoirs is only 51 tmcf of water”.
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“So, as per the suggestions of all the leaders, we should bring the ground realities to the notice of the SC and we require for drinking objective about 40tmcf of water but we are having only 51tmcf of water in all the four reservoirs”, he said. Their want Jayalalithaa to conduct an all party meeting and meet with the Prime Minister Modi to resolve the issue immediately. “It has become a practice for the Karnataka Government to release water only when it can not store excess water of if there is heavy rainfall in the Cauvery basin area”. This is the second dam being constructed on the Siruvani after 1984.
