Overview
- The Cauvery Water Management Authority upheld the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee’s recommendation on Tuesday to require Karnataka to ensure 6,000 cubic feet per second of flow to Tamil Nadu for 15 days.
- Karnataka’s water resources minister called the order impossible to meet given sharply reduced reservoir inflows and said the state is seriously considering filing a petition in the Supreme Court.
- Officials in Karnataka have already cut actual combined releases to about 5,200 cusecs, with roughly 4,800 cusecs from Krishnaraja Sagar and 1,200 cusecs from Kabini, as rainfall in upper catchments weakened.
- Cauvery Neeravari Nigama Limited said Karnataka has released about 33 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu so far and that there has been no recorded violation of CWMA or CWRC directions.
- The dispute follows a sequence of central orders this month that first asked for larger releases and highlights how limited southwest monsoon inflows force trade-offs between irrigation and drinking supplies and raise local political tensions in Mandya and other basin districts.