CWMA holds Karnataka to 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water for 15 days

The Cauvery Water Management Authority on 8 September directed Karnataka to keep 6,000 cusecs flowing to Tamil Nadu for 15 days from 8 a.m. on 9 September. The order, issued at the authority's 57th meeting in Delhi under chairman S.K. Haldar, cuts an earlier 9,000-cusec instruction but still leaves Bengaluru saying the figure cannot be met.

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee had met the same morning. Tamil Nadu asked for 17,000 cusecs. The committee looked at rainfall, reservoir levels and standing crops, then recommended 6,000 cusecs at the Biligundulu gauge. That volume is about 7.8 thousand million cubic feet over the fortnight, against 11.66 TMC that the August 25 order for 9,000 cusecs would have sent.

Karnataka Water Resources Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy called the number absurd. He said inflows into the basin had fallen sharply in the past week and that parts of the state already look drought-struck. Officials from both states sat in the Delhi room. "Even releasing 6,000 cusecs is impossible for us. We are making continuous efforts to ensure that no water is released," he told reporters. He said he would speak to Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and that the government planned to move the Supreme Court on 9 September.

The legal path is already open. A day earlier the Supreme Court told Tamil Nadu to take its complaint about short supply to the CWMA rather than treat the court as the first stop. The authority's August 25 order had restated a 9,000-cusec flow for 15 days after the committee's 141st meeting on 24 August. Combined outflow from Krishnaraja Sagara and Kabini then dropped. Almanaque recorded a 57 percent cut in a single day earlier this week, down to about 5,200 cusecs when Kodagu rain stopped.

On the Tamil Nadu side the clock is agricultural. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay opened Mettur's Stanley Reservoir on 1 September, 80 days later than the usual June date, with the dam at 91.56 feet against a full 120. Officials planned 45 days of release for samba paddy across 12 delta districts. By 5 September the flow at the Upper Anicut had thinned to about 1,500 cusecs after losses along the channel from Mayanur. Farmers in the Vennar and Cauvery branches have already called the season a gamble.

Cusecs are a rate, not a stock. Six thousand cubic feet a second at Biligundulu is a number both governments can argue over because rainfall in Kodagu and the catchment above KRS can change it overnight. The CWMA's job under the 2018 scheme is to translate the tribunal award into fortnightly instructions. When the upstream state says the reservoirs cannot support the instruction, the next document is usually a petition in New Delhi.

The politics sit on top of the hydrology. Karnataka's government has to answer Mandya and Mysuru farmers who watch every extra cusec leave the state. Tamil Nadu's government has to answer Thanjavur and Tiruvarur, where a late Mettur opening already shortened the window for nursery and transplant. A 6,000-cusec order is a compromise on paper. It is still more water than Karnataka says it can spare and less than Tamil Nadu says the delta needs.

If Bengaluru files in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the court will again be asked to choose between an authority order and a storage chart. The 15-day clock starts at 8 a.m. on 9 September either way. What actually arrives at Biligundulu in the first 48 hours will tell both capitals whether this instruction is being obeyed, shaded or ignored.