File report on water sharing with TN: SC to Karnataka

The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Karnataka government to furnish all the information on the amount of Cauvery River water shared by it with Tamil Nadu since 1992.

A bench of justices R M Lodha and J Chelameswar asked Karnataka to submit its report on Tuesday, when it will hear the plea on passing an interim direction on sharing of water by the two states.

The bench also observed that the requirement of drinking water for Karnataka should be given priority over water needed by Tamil Nadu for irrigation purposes and some out-of-box thinking is required to balance the demand of the two states.

"Some equitable sharing has to be done. Some out of box thinking is required. There has to be some interim solution," the bench said while pulling up Karnataka for not adhering to the formula of water sharing.

Earlier, on December 5, the Supreme Court had directed Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery water daily to its neighbouring state and asked the Cauvery Monitoring Committee to hold a meeting to decide the amount of water required by each state.

The committee had then directed Karnataka to provide Tamil Nadu with 12 TMC of Cauvery water during December. It did not pass any order for January as the Centre had assured the apex court that it would notify the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal award by December 31.

During the earlier hearing, on November 26, the court had asked the chief ministers of the two states to meet and arrive at an amicable solution.

The talks between the chief ministers failed to break the deadlock on the water sharing row and the matter again reached the apex court.