Question

Hello friends!! I want some of ur opinion about kaveri water dispute . if you don't know please don't try to answer

Answer 1

Karnataka is not giving water to anyone or TN. The Kaveri river flows origininating at Talakaveri, Kodagu in Karnataka, flows generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and across the southern Deccan plateau through the southeastern lowlands, emptying into the Bay of Bengal through two principal mouths in Poompuhar, Tamilnadu; and the best utilization of the water in this deficit river that matters. By best utilization I mean, “live, and let live”. It's the water stored in dams in Karnataka, built by Karnataka state governments that the Supreme Court has ordered to release as per the guidelines of the Cauvery Tribunal Award announced by the 3 member Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal headed by Justice N P Singh on Feb 5, 2007. As far as why this tribunal's award is flawed please go through this : Lohithbp Kumar's answer to Kaveri issue: How do people in Karnataka view conflict of sharing Kaveri river between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka? Even though Supreme court had ordered to share water between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka ,politicians hinder this for nefarious reasons, Isn't it unethical?

The Tribunal Award did not consider the new water efficient method of cultivating Rice, called the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). This technique has been proved effective through actual practice over thousands of hectares in TN, Karnataka, AP and elsewhere over the last 3-4 years. SRI can reduce water requirement by over 50% and yet increase per ha yields by 50% or more. If SRI is indeed practiced along the paddy areas in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the perceived water distress in the Cauvery basin could be almost eliminated. A Tribunal award that does not take into account such proven techniques clearly fails the test of technology.

The length of Kaveri River is 800 kilometer, 320 Km in Karnataka and the remaining 480 km in Tamil Nadu (and Kerala border). Tamil Nadu state constructed 3 dams (Mettur, Bhavani Sagar and Amaravathi) which has total capacity of 136 TMC of water. There are 3 dams constructed by Karnataka (KRS, Kabini and Harangi) which has total capacity of 104 TMC of water.

Karnataka requires 81 TMC of water to cater drinking water requirements and water for farming. However the total water currently available in all the 3 dams is only 56 TMC, out of which 22 TMC water is a dead water (below the dam gates). This statistics highlights that Karnataka has scarcity of 47 TMC of water.

On the contrary Tamil Nadu claims for 20 TMC of water so that the state is able to satisfy the demands of its farmers for growing commercial crops in March 2017.

Tamil Nadu’s irrigated lands had grown over the last 3-5 decades from an area of 1,440,000 acres to 2,580,000 acres, there are 1,140,000 forest land has been converted to farming land. While Karnataka’s irrigated area stood at 680,000 acres, no changes to the irrigated lands. Tamil Nadu demanding the additional share of the water to sustain its additional agricultural activity.

With 90% of the monsoon season over and little or no further rainfall expected, Karnataka is facing an serious shortage of water to drink also. At this moment Tamil Nadu Government is demanding for 20 TMC of water which they will be utilizing for the summer commercial crop. For further information on samba and Rabi rice crop see: Rice production in India

The greedy approach of Tamil Nadu has disappointed the Karnataka people and which is the reason of Bundh called on this Friday.