Cauvery Water Dispute: Deve Gowda urges PM Modi to set up external agency to study reservoirs in Cauvery basin
Deve Gowda on Monday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Jal Shakti Ministry to appoint an external agency, independent of the states that are party to the dispute and the union government, to conduct studies of all reservoirs in the Cauvery basin.
He also stressed the need to have an appropriate distress formula applicable to all the states concerned, in such distress conditions.
Noting that due to the failure of the Southwest monsoon (from June to September) this year, there is insufficient storage in the identified/designated four reservoirs of Cauvery basin in Karnataka, he said the state is facing such a grave situation that it is finding it extremely difficult even to cater to the drinking water requirements, let alone for irrigation.
The Janata Dal (S) supremo released a copy of the September 23 letter that he wrote to the Prime Minister on issues of 'resolving the ongoing disputes and differences between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the matter of releasing Cauvery waters from Karnataka reservoirs to Tamil Nadu,' at a press conference.
Deve Gowda said that the combined storage available as of September 23 in all four reservoirs of Cauvery basin in Karnataka is only 51.10 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) whereas the requirement for standing crops and for drinking water is 112 TMC.
«The attitude of Tamil Nadu in pressing for additional releases far in excess of 40 TMC already released so far is not only unjust but also against all principles of equity and natural justice, considering the fact that providing drinking water is a fundamental right under the Constitution and it gets the highest priority in the National Water Policy,» Gowda wrote in the letter.
«To appoint an external agency,
