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Can’t release water to T.N., State tells Supreme Court(thehindu)



Karnataka on Wednesday filed an interlocutory application in the Supreme Court, expressing its inability to release Cauvery waters at the rate of 2,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu.

According to Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil, the State has informed the apex court in its petition that the cumulative water storage in all its four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin was just 15.92 tmcft as on December 11. The present storage was not even adequate enough to meet its drinking water requirements, the State said.

Such being the situation, which had arisen owing to the failure of north-east monsoon, it was impossible to release water at the rate of 2,000 cusecs a day to Tamil Nadu as directed by the apex court earlier, it said. “The Karnataka government filed the interlocutory application on Wednesday, after a detailed discussion with the State’s legal team. In all likelihood, the case may come up for hearing on Thursday,” the Minister said.

Drinking water shortage

With depletion of water levels in the four reservoirs, residents of rural and urban centres, including Bengaluru, would face severe drinking water shortage in the coming summer, if the State had to continue with the release of that quantum of water to Tamil Nadu, said a senior official in the Department of Water Resources.

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