Kaveri River water dispute

The waters of the river Kaveri has been the bone of contention of a serious conflict between Karnataka and the state of Tamil Nadu. Over the years, the dispute has become increasingly complex both due to the stubborn stances of the parties involved, particularly those of the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and also due to petty politicking that has come to dog the dispute.

The dispute at its root is a question of the sharing of the waters of the river Kaveri. While the state of Tamil Nadu has historically enjoyed a vastly greater usage of the waters compared to Karnataka, Karnataka on the other hand, sees it as a grave historic injustice that has been forced upon it. But, it is worth noting that the major portion of the river lies in Tamil nadu. The genesis of this disparity itself, lies in a two controversial agreements signed in 1892 and then in 1924 between the Madras Presidency and the Princely State of Mysore.

Karnataka claims that these agreements were skewed heavily in favour of the Madras Presidency. It claims that these agreements dealt its own interests a very heavy blow and therefore wants a renegotiated settlement based on equitable sharing of the waters. Tamil Nadu on the other hand, pleads that it has already developed almost 3 million acres of land and as a result has come to depend very heavily on the existing pattern of usage. Any change in this pattern, it says, will adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state. It also points to the fact that the rate of development of irrigated land using Kaveri water in Karnataka have suddenly been increasing manifold in recent years.

Decades of negotiations between the parties involved bore no fruit and the Government of India finally constituted a tribunal in 1990 to look into the matter. The tribunal has been hearing arguments of all the parties involved for the last 16 years and yet, a settlement has eluded the dispute.

The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal gave its verdict on February 5, 2007. The tribunal allocated 419 tmc ft of water annually to Tamil Nadu and 270 tmc ft to Karnataka; 30 tmc ft of Cauvery river water to Kerala and 7 tmc ft to Puducherry. [1]

	Karnataka	Tamil Nadu	Kerala	Pondichery	Total
Basin Area (in km²)	34,273	43,868	2,866	148	81,155
Drought area in the basin (in km²)	21,870	12,790	--	--	34,660
Contribution of state (in TMC)	425	252	113		790
What they demand	465	566	100	9.3	1140.3
What TN demands	177	566	5	-	748
2007 tribunal verdict	270	419	30	70	789

A snapshot of the numbers

History of the dispute

The history of this conflict goes back a long way. There were disputes as long back as 1807. But decades passed uneventfully. The British controlled both Mysore and Madras for a short period in the middle of the 19th century. During their regime, numerous plans were drawn up for the utilization of the Kaveri waters by both states. However, the drought and subsequent famine in the mid 1870s put a hold on the implementation of these plans. The plans were revived by Mysore in 1881 by which time Mysore was back in the hands of the Mysore kings while present day Tamil Nadu continued to remain a part of the Madras Presidency.

Mysore's plans to revive the irrigation projects met with resistance from the Madras Presidency. Mysore state made a representation to the then British government as a result of which, the Agreement of 1892 was signed. Karnataka deems this agreement as having been between unequal partners because while Mysore state was a princely state, Madras formed a part of the British Raj. Karnataka also considers this agreement to have been severely inimical to its interests as it gave sweeping powers and prescriptive rights to Madras, the lower riparian state. As per this agreement, Mysore was required to obtain Madras' consent for any water it wished to utilize or for any project it wished to undertake to utilize the waters. In other words, Madras was vested with powers to veto any plans Mysore state might draw up for utilization of the waters.

Things came to a head in 1910 when Mysore, under Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar as the king and Sir. M.Vishweshwariah as Chief Engineer (shortly thereafter, to be one of the prominent Diwans of Mysore state) came up with a plan to construct a dam at Kannambadi village to hold up to 41.5 TMC of water. The dam was planned to be built in two stages. In the first stage a capacity of 11 TMC was envisioned, while in the second stage the full capacity was set to be realized. Madras however, refused to give its consent for this move as it had its own plans to build a storage dam at Mettur with a capacity of 80 TMC. The dispute continued.

After a reference to the Government of India, permission was accorded to Mysore, but for a reduced storage of 11TMC. Mysore had no option but to accept the decision and proceeded with the construction. During construction, however, the foundation was laid to suit the earlier desired full storage. This raised Madras' hackles and the dispute continued. As a result, the then British Government of India referred the matter to arbitration under Rule IV of the 1892 Agreement. The Cauvery dispute thus had come up for arbitration for the first time.

Sir H D Griffin was appointed arbitrator and M. Nethersole, the Inspector General of Irrigation in India, was made the Assessor. They entered into proceedings on 16 July 1913 and the Award was given on 12 May 1914. The award upheld the earlier decision of the Government of India and allowed Mysore to go ahead with the construction of the dam up to 11 TMC.

In his award, Sir. Griffin making no secret of the underlying basis for the judgment, concluded thus,

The resolution we have arrived at, recognises the paramount importance of the existing Madras interests, has for its primary object the safeguarding of those interests and does, we believe, safeguard them effectually.

In other words, it was made clear once again that British (and hence Madras) interests came first and every effort would be made to safegaurd the same. The agreement also stipulated that Mysore was not to increase its area under irrigation more than 110,000 beyond what was already existing acres while the same cap for Madras Presidency was pegged at 301,000 acres. of the Kaveri waters. However, both Mysore and Madras were able to complete their projects at Kannambadi and Mettur respectively. While Mysore constructed the KRS dam at Kannambadi to a capacity of 45 TMC, Madras built the Mettur Dam to hold 93.5 TMC.

Post independence developments

In 1947, India won Independence from the British. This changed the equations drastically. Tamil Nadu was carved out of Madras Presidency and Mysore province became a state.

Further in 1956, the reorganization of the states of India took place and state boundaries were redrawn based on linguistic demographics. Coorg or Kodagu (the birthplace of the Kaveri), became a part of Mysore State. Huge parts of erstwhile Hyderabad state and Bombay Presidency joined with Mysore state. Parts of Malabar which earlier formed part of Madras Presidency went to Kerala. Pondicherry had already become a de facto Union territory in 1954.

All these changes further changed the equations as Kerala and Pondicherry also jumped into the fray. Kerala staked its claim as one of the major tributaries of the Kaveri, the Kabini, now originated in Kerala. Karaikal region of Pondicherry at the tail end of the river demanded the waters that it had always used for drinking and some minimal agriculture. While these additional claims complicated matters greatly at a technical level, Mysore and Tamil Nadu still remained the major parties to the dispute.

By the late 60s, both states and the Central government began to realize the gravity of the situation as the 50 year run of the 1924 agreement was soon coming to an end. Negotiations were started in right earnest and discussions continued for almost 10 years.

70s

While discussions continued, a Cauvery Fact Finding Committee (CFFC) was constituted. The brief of the CFFC was to inspect the ‘ground’ realities and come up with a report. The CFFC came up with a preliminary report in 1972 and a final report in 1973. Inter state discussions were held based on this report. Finally in 1974, a draft agreement which also provided for the creation of a Cauvery Valley Authority was prepared by the Ministry of Irrigation. This draft however, was not ratified.

While all these discussions went on, Tamil Nadu’s irrigated lands had grown humongously, while Karnataka ’s had stagnated. Tamil Nadu’s irrigated area stood at a huge 24 lakh acres while Karnataka ’s irrigated area was a mere 4.2 lakh acres. The one sided nature of the so-called agreement was there for everyone to see.

In 1976, after a series of discussions between the two states and the Central government chaired by Jagjeevan Ram, the then Irrigation Minister, a final draft was prepared based on findings of the CFFC. This draft was accepted by all states and the Government also made an announcement to that effect in Parliament.

Tamil Nadu came under President’s rule soon after that and the agreement was put on the backburner. When President’s rule was lifted, the AIADMK with M G Ramachandran at the helm came to power for the first time in Tamil Nadu and this was when the dispute took a new turn.

The Tamil Nadu government rejected the draft agreement which was ratified with its own consent. It now started insisting that the 1924 agreement had only provided for an extension and not a review. It began insisting that status quo be restored and everyone go back to the agreements of 1892 and 1924.

This however, did not cut ice with Karnataka which had throughout maintained that those agreements were partisan and had been signed between unequal partners.

When Karnataka began construction of the Harangi dam at Kushalanagara in Kodagu, it was once again met with resistance from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu went to court demanding the constitution of a Tribunal under the Inter State Water Disputes Act(ISWD) of 1956. It also demanded the immediate stoppage of construction work at the dam site.

As a result of Tamil Nadu’s protests, Karnataka had to fund the construction under the non-plan head and this led to a severe strain on its finances.

80s

Later Tamil Nadu withdrew its case demanding the constitution of a tribunal and the two states started negotiating again. Several rounds of discussions were held in the 80s. The result was still, a stalemate. In 1986, a farmer’s association from Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu moved the Supreme Court demanding the constitution of a tribunal. While this case was still pending, the two states continued many rounds of talks. This continued till April of 1990 and yet yielded no results.

The Nineties and beyond

As the eighties drew to a close and into the nineties, the bilateral negotiations between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were not going anywhere. To make matters worse, both states had unilaterally continued to expand their irrigated area without any consensus. While Tamil Nadu's irrigated area had grown to 28 lakh acres, Karnataka's had grown to 11.2 lakh acres.

The constitution of the tribunal

The Supreme Court then directed the government headed by Prime Minister V P Singh to constitute a tribunal and refer all disputes to it. A three man tribunal was thus constituted on 2 June 1990. The tribunal was headquartered at New Delhi and was to be headed by Justice Chittatosh Mookerjee.

The four states presented their demands to the tribunal as under

• Karnataka - claimed 465 TMC ft as its share
• Kerala - wants 99.8 TMC ft as its share
• Pondicherry - claims 9.3 TMC ft
• Tamil Nadu - wants the flows to be ensured in accordance with the terms of the agreements of 1892 and 1924 (ie., 566 TMC for Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry; 177 TMC for Karnataka and 5 TMC for Kerala).

Interim Award and the Riots

Soon after the tribunal was set up, Tamil Nadu demanded a mandatory injunction on Karnataka for the immediate release of water and other reliefs. This was dismissed by the tribunal. Tamil Nadu now went back to the Supreme Court which directed the tribunal to reconsider Tamil Nadu’s plea.

The tribunal reconsidered Tamil Nadu’s plea and gave an interim award on 25 June 1991. In coming up with this award, the tribunal calculated the average inflows into Tamil Nadu over a period of 10 years between 1980–81 and 1989–90. The extreme years were ignored for this calculation. The average worked out to 205 TMC which Karnataka had to ensure reached Tamil Nadu in a water year. The award also stipulated the weekly and monthly flows to be ensured by Karnataka for each month of the water year. The tribunal further directed Karnataka not to increase it irrigated land area from the existing 11.2 lakh acres.

Karnataka deemed this extremely inimical to its interests and issued an ordinance seeking to annul the tribunal’s award. The Supreme Court now stepped in at the President’s instance and struck down the Ordinance issued by Karnataka. It upheld the tribunal’s award which was subsequently gazetted by the Government of India on 11 December 1991.

Karnataka was thus forced to accept the interim award and widespread demonstrations and violence broke out in parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu following this.

In the violence that ensued around 20 people were killed and dozens injured. This instance of rioting remains the worst case of violence in Karnataka's history and the losses were estimated at around Rs 19 crore. Thousands of Tamil families had to flee from Bangalore in fear of being attacked. The violence which was centered mainly in some parts of Bangalore lasted for about a month and most schools and educational institutions in Bangalore remained closed during this period. Chennai and few other parts of Tamil Nadu also saw sporadic instances of violence during this period.

The Crisis of '95–'96

In 1995, the monsoons failed badly in Karnataka and Karnataka found itself hard pressed to fulfil the interim order. Tamil Nadu approached the Supreme Court demanding the immediate release of at least 30 TMC. The Supreme Court refused to entertain Tamil Nadu's petition and asked it to approach the tribunal. The tribunal examined the case and recommended that Karntaka release 11 TMC. Karnataka pleaded that 11 TMC was unimplementable in the circumstances that existed then. Tamil Nadu now went back to the Supreme Court demanding that Karnataka be forced to obey the tribunal's order. The Supreme Court this time recommended that the then Prime Minister, Mr. P. V. Narasimha Rao intervene and find a political solution. The Prime Minister convened a meeting with the Chief Ministers of the two states and recommended that Karnataka release 6 TMC instead of the 11TMC that the tribunal ordered.

Karnataka complied with the decision of the Prime Minister and the issue blew over.

Constitution of the CRA

Karnataka had all through maintained that the interim award was not 'scientific' and was inherently flawed. It had, nevertheless, complied with the order except during 1995–96 when rains failed. What complicated matters was that the Interim award was ambiguous on distress sharing and there was no clear cut formula that everyone agreed upon to share the waters in the case of failure of the monsoon.

In 1997, the Government proposed the setting up of a Cauvery River Authority which would be vested with far reaching powers to ensure the implementation of the Interim Order. These powers included the power to take over the control of dams in the event of the Interim Order not being honoured. Karnataka which had always maintained that the interim order had no scientific basis and was intrinsically flawed, strongly protested the proposal to set up such an authority.

The Government, then made several modifications to the powers of the Authority and came up with a new proposal. The new proposal greatly reduced the executive powers of the Authority. The power to take over control of dams was also done away with. Under this new proposal, the Government set up two new bodies, viz., Cauvery River Authority and Cauvery Monitoring Committee.

The Cauvery River Authority would comprise of the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of all four states(Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala) and was headquartered in New Delhi. The Cauvery Monitoring Committee on the other hand, was an expert body which comprised of engineers, technocrats and other officers who would take stock of the 'ground realities' and report to the CRA.

The flare up and high drama of 2002

In the summer of 2002, things once again came to a head as the monsoon failed in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Reservoirs in both states fell to record low levels and inevitably tempers rose. The sticking point yet again, as in 1995–96 was how the distress would be shared between the two states. The tribunal had overlooked this crucial point when it gave the interim award and it had retrurned once again to haunt the situation. Tamil Nadu demanded that Karnataka honour the interim award and release to Tamil Nadu its due share. Karnataka on the other hand pleaded that the water levels were hardly enough to meet its own demands and ruled out releasing any water in the circumstances that prevailed.

A meeting of the CRA was called on 27 August but the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha walk out of the meeting. The focus now shifted to the SC which ordered Karnataka to release 1.25 TMCft of water every day unless CRA revised it. Karnataka started the release of water but pressed for another meeting of the CRA which was fixed for 8 September. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister this time around, boycotted the meet citing insufficient notice. A minister from her cabinet attended it on her behalf. The CRA revised the Court's order from 1.25 TMCft to 0.8 TMCft per day.

This time however, the Karnataka government in open defiance of the order of the CRA, refused to release any water succumbing to the large scale protests that had mounted in the Kaveri districts of the state.Tamil Nadu aghast at this defiance, went back to the Supreme Court. Karnataka now resumed the release of water for a few days, but stopped it again on 18 September as a protesting farmer committed suicide by jumping into the reservoir and the protests were seeming to take a dangerous turn.

The centre now stepped in and asked Karnataka to release the water. This also however, fell on deaf ears. The SC meanwhile, in response to Tamil Nadu's petition asked the CRA for details of the water release and water levels in the reservoirs. The CRA in turn ordered the Chief Minister to make the necessary inspections of the reservoirs. While the Chief Minister inspected the reservoirs in Karnataka , Tamil Nadu (on 23 September) flatly refused to grant them permission to inspect its reservoirs. This move by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, coupled with her earlier walkout and boycott of the CRA meets, came in for severe criticism from all quarters. On 30 September the SC ordered Tamil Nadu to cooperate with the Chief MinisterC and Tamil Nadu gave in.

The flare up had by now, well and truly taken an ugly turn and there were accusations and counter accusations being thrown all around in both states. While Karnataka blamed Jayalalitha's confrontationist approach, Jayalalitha blamed Karnataka 's intransigence and the 'toothlessness' of the CRA for the state of affairs. The opposition parties in Tamil Nadu too had jumped into the fray and had started baying for Jayalalitha's blood while at the same time joining Jayalalitha in stinging rebukes of both the Centre and the CRA.

To add to all this, the dispute had already spilled onto the streets in the district of Mandya in Karnataka and was threatening to spread to other parts of the state too. Precipitating the matters on the streets, the SC ordered Karnataka on 3 October to comply with the CRA and resume the release of water.

Karnataka once again, in an unprecedented show of defiance, refused to budge. Tamil Nadu slapped another contempt petition on Karnataka and soon the issue degenerated into a 'free for all' with all and sundry from both states joining the protests. Soon, film actors and various other cross sections of society from both states were on the streets. The belligerence soon hit a crescendo and while some groups in Tamil Nadu called for a stoppage of power from the Neyveli Power station to Karnataka as a tit-for-tat measure, a Pan-Tamil militant outfit (a month or so later) went ahead and blasted a major power transformer supplying power to the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr. S M Krishna on the other hand, fearing that the situation might spiral out of control, embarked on a padayatra from Bangalore to Mandya. While some saw this as merely a gimmick, some, like U R Ananthamurthy saw it as a good faith effort to soothe tempers and joined him in the yatra.

In the meanwhile, Tamil Nadu's contempt suit on Karnataka , came up for hearing on 1 November. The Karnataka government, by now saw the spectre of a harsh rebuke and action by the SC, as a last ditch effort to salvage the situation, decided to resume the release of water while at the same time compensating its own farmers for the loss. The SC deferred the case to 15 November and on 15 November, while reserving its comment on Karnataka , censured the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for attacking the CRA and the PM and ordered Tamil Nadu to tender an unqualified apology. Tamil Nadu complied with it and tendered the apology.

By now, with Karnataka 's resumption of water release, compensation of its farmers and the first signs of the arrival of the N-E monsoon in Tamil Nadu, frayed tempers were on the wane. A couple of months later, the SC in an exceptionally stinging censure, pulled it up the Karnataka government for its defiance of the Courts. The Karnataka Chief Minister tendered an unqualified apology and soon the dispute blew over.

Most importantly and equally unfortunately, once again the dispute had blown over without any agreement being reached on the vexed issue of 'distress-sharing'.

2003–2006

The last four years haven't seen any major flare up in the dispute even though the summer of 2003 saw a dry spell in both states. The monsoons in 2004, 2005 and 2006 was quite copious and this helped a great deal in keeping the tempers calm. While the last 3 or 4 years have been relatively quiet as far as jingoistic voices are concerned, a flurry of development has been afoot in the courts.

The term of the tribunal was initially set to expire in August of 2005. However, in the light of the many arguments the court was yet to hear, the tribunal filed a request for extension of its term. The extension was granted and the tribunal's term was extended for another year until Sep 2006.

Early in 2006, a major controversy erupted over the 'Assessor's report' that was apparently 'leaked' to the press. The report had suggested a decision which Karnataka summarily rejected. Another major controversy erupted when just a couple of months before the September 2006 deadline, the tribunal recommended the formation of another expert committee to study the 'ground realities' yet again. This was unanimously and vehemently opposed by all the four states party to the dispute. The states contended that this move would further delay a judgement which has already been 16 years in the making.

More than the disapproval of all the four states of the new expert committee that was proposed, the proposal turned out to be a major embarrassment for the tribunal. This was because, not only were the four states opposed to it, even the Chief Judge of the tribunal, Mr.?? was opposed to it. However the other two assistant judges on the 3-man adjudication team, overruled the opinion of the main Judge. And all this was done in a packed courtroom and this led to petty bickering and heated arguments between the three judges in the packed courtroom. This left everyone in the courtroom shocked and the Tamil Nadu counsel was moved to remark that it was embarrassing that the Judges probably needed help settling their own disputes before adjudicating on the dispute at hand.

Nonetheless, the new expert committee was formed and is carrying out its brief now. Meanwhile, the extended deadline has also passed and the tribunal has got another extension. A settlement of the dispute however, continues to elude all the states party to the dispute.

Judgment

The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal has announced its final verdict on Monday, 05th February, 2007.

According to its verdict, Tamil Nadu gets 419 tmc ft of Cauvery water while Karnataka gets 270 tmc ft. The actual release of water by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu is to be 192 tmc ft annually. Further, Kerala will get 30 tmc ft and Puducherry 7 tmc ft.