CWMA holds Karnataka to 6,000 cusecs a day for Tamil Nadu

The Cauvery Water Management Authority, meeting in Delhi on 8 September under S.K. Haldar, upheld a Cauvery Water Regulation Committee order that Karnataka must deliver 6,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu for 15 days. Karnataka had appealed the committee’s number. The authority told it to comply.

The figure is a step down from the 9,000 cusecs the same authority set on 25 August for the previous fortnight. It is a step up from what Karnataka is actually sending. Combined outflow from Krishnaraja Sagar and Kabini fell to 5,200 cusecs this week from 11,983 cusecs a day earlier, a 57 percent cut after rain stopped in Kodagu.

KRS stood at 106.84 feet on Monday morning against a full level of 124.80 feet. Inflow was 2,511 cusecs. Outflow was 4,800. Kabini sat at 2,268.50 feet against 2,284, with inflow of 2,514 cusecs and a 1,200-cusec release. When a reservoir loses more water than it gains, the next fortnight’s order becomes a political document as much as a hydrological one.

Karnataka Water Resources Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy called the 6,000-cusec direction “illogical.” He said the state is in serious drought, the south-west monsoon is nearly done, and there is little hope of fresh rain in the upper catchment. He told reporters the government would consult Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and consider a Supreme Court filing on 9 September.

Tamil Nadu’s interest is Mettur and the delta. Water that crosses the Biligundulu gauge feeds Stanley Reservoir and the samba crop in twelve districts. Chief Minister Vijay opened Mettur on 1 September, 80 days late, with the dam at 91.56 feet against 120. A 15-day run at 6,000 cusecs is about 7.8 thousand million cubic feet if the gauge holds. The August order at 9,000 cusecs was meant to deliver about 11.66 TMC.

The Supreme Court had told Tamil Nadu a day earlier to take its grievance to the CWMA rather than stay in court. The 57th meeting of the authority is that hearing. Officials from both states sat in the room. The result is a split decision: the number falls from 9,000 to 6,000, and Karnataka is still told it is not free to sit at 5,200.

Cauvery math is always an argument about whose shortage counts. Karnataka points at a reservoir that is already releasing more than it receives. Tamil Nadu points at a delta that planted late and needs a continuous pulse. The 2018 scheme that created the CWRC and the CWMA was supposed to take that argument out of street processions and put it in a committee room. The committee room still ends in a press conference and a threat of court.

If Karnataka goes to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the 6,000-cusec clock will run while judges read affidavits. If it does not, engineers at KRS and Kabini will have to find 800 cusecs they say they do not have, or accept that the gauge at the border will show a shortfall and another complaint will follow.

Fifteen days is a short order. The monsoon’s remaining rain is shorter. That is why Cheluvarayaswamy used the word he used, and why Haldar’s meeting did not give Karnataka the zero it asked for.

At Biligundulu the gauge does not care about press conferences. It records a flow or it records a shortfall. For the next 15 days that number is 6,000 cusecs. Karnataka says the reservoirs cannot support it. Tamil Nadu says the delta cannot wait. The authority has picked a figure between last month’s 9,000 and this week’s 5,200. That is a compromise in the only unit the river accepts.