A meeting of the Cauvery River Authority convened by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in New Delhi on Monday was deferred due to lack of quorum.
The chief ministers of only two of the four members of the CRA -- J Jayalalithaa from Tamil Nadu and S M Krishna from Karnataka -- were present. Kerala's A K Antony and Pondicherry's N Rangasami did not come.
A quorum of three chief ministers is required for holding the CRA meeting.
The prime minister used the occasion to hold consultations with Jayalalithaa and Krishna to arrive at an "informal understanding" on the distress-sharing formula, Urban Development Minister Ananth Kumar said.
Failure of monsoon, water for standing crops and also for drinking were among other issues that figured during the meeting, Kumar said.