Limits of federal mediation

The Centre's inability to ensure the implementation of the order of the Cauvery River Authority stands exposed in the face of Karnataka's refusal to cooperate.

PROCRASTINATION has been the time-tested strategy to defuse tensions between two parties. However, in the context of an inter-State dispute, where time is of the essence to find any solution, delaying a decision has in-built risks for federal peace. Indeed, for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who met the rival teams led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna, on September 21 in New Delhi, there appeared to be no option but to seek further time to tackle the vexed Cauvery waters dispute.

Vajpayee decided to send a team of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), accompanied by the Chief Secretaries of both States, to inspect the water levels in the reservoirs in both States and submit a report within three days. The Cauvery River Authority (CRA) would then meet to take a decision on the report. Until such time, the Centre could only appeal to Karnataka to comply with the CRA's earlier decision to release water. If Karnakata ignores the appeal (as it did), the Centre would have no remedy for the crisis.

The current crisis began with Karnataka's decision to "suspend'' the release of water to Tamil Nadu with effect from September 18, in view of the violent protests by farmers in the Cauvery basin. Karnataka's move was a blow to the Centre, which had helped the CRA arrive at an order on September 8 to ensure an inflow of around 0.8 tmc ft water into the Mettur reservoir in Tamil Nadu daily on a weekly average basis. Karnataka had accepted the order, which replaced the Supreme Court's September 3 directive to Karnataka to release water from its reservoirs so that 1.25 tmc ft of water was ensured at the Mettur reservoir daily until the CRA took a final decision on the matter. Karnataka's sudden decision to suspend the release of water, citing a law and order problem in the State over the issue, failed to convince anyone.

As the Chairman of the CRA, Vajpayee held an emergency meeting with Union Water Resources Minister Arjun Charan Sethi and directed him to ask Karnataka to release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu as decided by the Authority on September 8. Sethi admitted that Karnataka had not complied fully with either the Supreme Court directive or the CRA order.

The "show of strength'' by the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu teams before the Prime Minister on September 21 revealed that both States reposed greater faith in extra-institutional methods to meet domestic pressure over the non-sharing of Cauvery waters, than in the institutional mechanism of the CRA.

The 67-member Tamil Nadu delegation arrived in New Delhi from Chennai on a chartered flight in order to convey the gravity of the situation to the Prime Minister, who seemed to be impressed with the size of the delegation. Besides explaining at length the pathetic condition prevailing in the Cauvery delta, the delegation submitted a detailed memorandum, pleading for immediate Central intervention to ensure the release of water. The memorandum said that lakhs of farmers had lost their kuruvai crop and feared that they may not be able to start operations for the samba crop on nearly 12 lakh acres (4.8 hectares).

The memorandum pointed out that as per the pro-rata distress-sharing formula evolved by the Central Water Commission in April and discussed and approved at the 13th meeting of the CMC of the CRA on August 9, until the end of August the deficit due to Tamil Nadu was 36 tmc ft of water. As per this distress formula, nearly 40 tmc ft of water would have to be released to Tamil Nadu in September and October, thus raising the State's eligibility to 76 tmc ft by the end of October. Although this would require the release of 1.5 tmc ft of water a day by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu accepted the release of 1.25 tmc ft as ordered by the Supreme Court. The CRA's decision to reduce this quota to 0.8 tmc ft left Tamil Nadu with no option but to file an interlocutory application before the Supreme Court for setting aside the CRA's decision and directing Karnataka to release water as per the court's September 3 order.

The Tamil Nadu government quantified the shortfall in the receipt of water between September 4 and 19 as 10.22 tmc ft. It, therefore, urged the Centre to amend the rules of the CRA, in order to enable it to take over the reservoirs in Karnataka and release water to Tamil Nadu as per its orders since the mechanism for implementing the orders cannot be left to the mercy of a State government, which is a party to the inter-State dispute.

S.M. Krishna, unfazed by the all-round criticism outside Karnataka of his government's decision to suspend the release of water, maintained after meeting the Prime Minister, that the CRA's September 8 order had two qualifying points "depending on the inflows and/on levels in the reservoirs''. The State's plea was that the inflows and storages had come down drastically since the CRA's decision. If that was the case, why did Karnataka cite deteriorating law and order situation as the reason for suspending the release of water? The CRA's order, in any case, did not give any licence to Karnataka to suspend the release of water, if it felt that the level in the reservoirs was inadequate. Surely, it could have anticipated (as it now does) on September 8 that with a release of 0.8 tmc ft, the active storage in Karnataka reservoirs would get "wholly exhausted'' in 40-45 days, even assuming that the present level of inflows continued during the period.

Put in this context, the outcome of the hearing in the Supreme Court on Tamil Nadu's interlocutory application and its petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against Krishna, Karnataka Water Resources Minister H.K. Patil and Karnataka officials for wilfully disobeying the court's and the CRA's orders is keenly awaited.