K’taka to appeal to CWMA to reconsider decision on releasing Cauvery water to TN: DCM Shivakumar

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Thursday said the state government will approach the Cauvery Water Management Authority requesting it to reconsider its order to the state to release 10,000 cusecs of water everyday for the next 15 days to Tamil Nadu.

The DCM said there have been inadequate rains this year and the state is facing a drought.

“We have received less rain this time. The court has ordered us to release 10,000 cusecs of water everyday. We released water initially but that is not making them comfortable and we too don’t have water. There is a situation of drought. So we are going to the court again with a request to reconsider the order of releasing 10,000 cusecs of water for the next 15 days,” Shivakumar told reporters here.

He said if there were adequate rains, Karnataka would have released water but there are no rains now. “So, there is a big difficulty. More than crops, water for drinking purpose is a major challenge for us,” Shivakumar said.

Regarding former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy seeking time for an all-party meeting over the issue, the DCM said the state government is also considering it.

According to him, former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai too has written a letter asking the Congress government not to release water. He, however, sought to remind them that all governments have had to release water amid distress.

“When Bommai was chief minister he had released water when there was distress here. Quite an amount of water was released when H D Deve Gowda was prime minister. Even the BJP government had released water. We have documents but I don’t want to do politics over it,” Shivakumar said.