Karnataka refutes T.N. charge

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, MAY 18. Karnataka today sought the postponement of the meeting of the Cauvery river water authority scheduled for Friday to a date after June 6 questioning the very need for holding it at such a short notice.

It has also warned that if Tamil Nadu attempted to rake up the Cauvery dispute as it did from 1991 onwards, Karnataka will be forced to reopen the developments since 1924 when the erstwhile princely Mysore entered into an agreement with the British (Madras Presidency).

This decision was taken at an all-party meeting convened by the Chief Minister, Mr. S. M. Krishna. It noted that Friday's meeting in Delhi had been convened following a complaint from the Tamil Nadu Government that Karnataka was not complying with the directives of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal contained in its interim award of June 1991. The meeting refuted the complaint from Tamil Nadu. The Centre had not forwarded the complaint from the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, to enable the State to react to it. In the absence of any such material, it noted that the meeting was being held in a vacuum.

Today's meeting had, in fact, been convened to discuss the Supreme Court judgment on the Alamatti Dam height issue but was converted to that on the Cauvery following the announcement from Delhi of the meeting of the Cauvery river water authority. The meeting was attended among others by former Chief Ministers, Mr. S. R. Bommai, Mr. Veerappa Moily and Mr. J. H. Patel, the leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses of the Legislature, Mr. Jagadish Shettar (Assembly) and Mr. K. H. Srinivasa (Council), the Major Irrigation Minister, Mr. H. K. Patil, Mr. Justice H. G. Balakrishna, retired judge of the High Court, senior officials and engineers.

The Chief Minister, who briefed the Press after the meeting, said that the decision was unanimous. He had sent a communication to the Prime Minister, Mr. A. B. Vajpayee, seeking the postponement and was awaiting the Centre's response before taking the next step.

Mr. Krishna said that the State was informed about the meeting very late and the Centre decided on the date of the meeting on its own. It did not take into consideration his engagements and convenience before fixing the date. It was only on May 14 that a fax message was received by his office about such an important meeting.

Mr. Krishna said that he had presumed that the Tamil Nadu Government had told the Centre that Karnataka had violated the interim award of the tribunal. The Government could have replied had the complaint from Tamil Nadu been forwarded to it. The letter from his Tamil Nadu counterpart to the Centre was dated January 28, 2000. He had learnt that Tamil Nadu had complained of injustice right from 1991. At that rate, ``we have to go back to 1924''. At the same time, he said that the State did not want to adopt an attitude of confrontation. He wondered where tomorrow's meeting would end up if it were to discuss an ``omnibus subject''.

Contending that the very raison d'etre of setting up the Cauvery River water authority was being violated, the all-party meeting said that the monitoring committee consisting of secretaries to government of the riparian States should meet first before the meeting of the authority was convened. The committee had been set up to assist the authority. It should have heard any complaint before the authority met and ``that is our basic stand''. The meeting said that the Cauvery river water authority did not have the locus standi to look into what had taken place before it was set up in August 1998.

Mr. Krishna said that he had told the Prime Minister that for tomorrow's meeting to be meaningful, it (meeting) should have before it the response of Karnataka to Tamil Nadu's complaint.

Holding that it was uncharitable to allege that Karnataka had altered in the implementation of the interim award of the tribunal, Mr. Krishna said that whereas the interim award said that Karnataka should release 205 tmcft of Cauvery waters to Tamil Nadu in a year, it had this year released far more than that . The gauging station at Biligundlu had recorded a release of 267 tmcft and that at the Mettur Dam of 257 tmcft.

The Chief Minister, Mr. S. M. Krishna (second from left), making a point at the all-party meeting in Bangalore on Thursday. Others seen (from left) are: Mr. Jagadish Shettar, Opposition Leader in the Assembly, Mr. H. K. Patil, Minister for Irrigation, Mr. D. B. Chandre Gowda, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs, and Mr. J. H. Patel, former Chief Minister. - Photo: T. L. Prabhakar

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