Cauvery panel to meet in Puducherry after four years

March 13, 2024 10:53 pm | Updated 10:53 pm IST - CHENNAI

CHENNAI

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) will meet in Puducherry on March 21.

This will be the second time that the committee will have its deliberations in the Union Territory. The previous meeting there took place in January 2020. The last meeting of the committee was held a month ago.

Though the CWRC meetings took place in Bengaluru prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a norm, for all practical purposes, for the members to take part through at the proceedings video-conference in the last four years.

The proposed meeting will assess the pattern of water realisation, as recorded at Biligundulu on the inter-State border, during the current water year, starting from June 2023. As of now, the total realisation was around 77.5 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft), whereas, in a normal year, it should have been about 170.6 tmc ft up to March 11 (Monday).

Though the Authority directed Karnataka to ensure environmental flows in the lean months of the year, the upper riparian State has not been able to comply with the order as its capital Bengaluru is in the midst of a huge water crisis.

Meanwhile, the negotiation committee on the Pennaiyar water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which met last month, has sought data from the States.

Notwithstanding the poor realisation of the Cauvery water, the delta in the State missed the target coverage only by about 1.3 lakh acres during the Samba-Thaladi cultivation season. Against the target of 13.26 lakh acres, the achievement in coverage was 11.93 lakh acres. However, this was lower than the previous year’s figure of 13.53 lakh acres. Of the extent of coverage accomplished this year, harvest has been done in respect of 10.55 lakh acres: 6.7 lakh acres under Samba and 3.85 lakh acres under Thaladi.