CWMA keeps Karnataka on 6,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu for 15 more days

The Cauvery Water Management Authority, meeting in Delhi on 8 September under S.K. Haldar, upheld a Cauvery Water Regulation Committee direction that Karnataka keep 6,000 cusecs flowing to Tamil Nadu for 15 days. The flow is to be measured at the Biligundulu border gauge and is due to start at 8 a.m. on 9 September. Karnataka had asked the authority to cut the earlier 9,000-cusec order down to 2,000. The authority said no.

The sequence is tight. On 24 August the regulation committee, at its 141st sitting, told Karnataka to deliver 9,000 cusecs at Biligundulu for 15 days, a volume Tamil Nadu put at about 11.66 thousand million cubic feet. The CWMA confirmed that order on 25 August. On 4 September Karnataka appealed for a cut to 2,000 cusecs, citing falling inflows. On 7 September the Supreme Court told Tamil Nadu to take its grievance about short releases to the CWMA rather than stay in court. On 8 September the committee, in a sitting chaired by Vineet Gupta in one account and then the authority itself, reset the number at 6,000 for another fortnight.

Karnataka Water Resources Minister N. Cheluvarayaswamy called the 6,000-cusec figure illogical and said even that rate is impossible. He told reporters that Tamil Nadu had asked for 17,000 cusecs, that inflows into the upper basin have dropped over the past week, and that the southwest monsoon is nearly over. He said the state would consult Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and could move the Supreme Court on 9 September. Officials from both states sat in the 57th CWMA meeting.

On the ground the release had already slumped. Combined discharge from Krishnaraja Sagar and Kabini fell from 11,983 cusecs to 5,200 in a day, a drop of 6,783 cusecs or about 57 percent. Of the 5,200, 4,800 came from KRS and 1,200 from Kabini. That is below the new 6,000-cusec instruction before the instruction even starts. Tamil Nadu watches those numbers because they feed Mettur and the delta canals that carry the kuruvai and samba seasons.

Distress sharing is the legal frame. When the basin is short, the tribunal formula and the 2018 Supreme Court judgment still apply, but the weekly machinery is the CWRC and the CWMA. Karnataka's argument is hydrological: reservoirs cannot manufacture water if the catchment stays dry. Tamil Nadu's argument is legal: a confirmed 15-day order cannot be rewritten unilaterally because one monsoon week was weak. Haldar's authority chose the lower of the two recent committee figures, 6,000 rather than 9,000, and refused the 2,000 Karnataka wanted.

Fifteen days at 6,000 cusecs is a large volume to take from reservoirs that are already being drawn down. It is also less than the August order. The political heat will sit in Mandya and Mysuru if irrigation sluices are cut to meet Biligundulu, and in Thanjavur if the gauge still undershoots. Cheluvarayaswamy's Supreme Court warning is the next scheduled move. The court has just told the parties to use the authority. Whether it now entertains a fresh petition against the authority's own 8 September decision is the question for Wednesday.