Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa will be making only a day trip to the capital for the Cauvery river authority (CRA) meeting that is being held for the first time in 9 years, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chairing it. Representing her lower riparian state, Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa will have to battle hard against the new formula that Karnataka is trying to push in.
The state, which has the river source avers that Cauvery water release should be guided by the monsoon inflows each year and there should not be any fixed quota as prescribed in the interim order of the tribunal telling Karnataka to release 205 tmcft of water at Mettur.
With chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry being in attendance, the meeting is likely to generate sparks. Opposing Karnataka’s stand will be Tamil Nadu which would like water to be released immediately even in a lean monsoon year as per the tribunal order to save the standing crops in the rice-rich delta.
Jayalalithaa’s vociferous stand on the need to convene the meeting and SC’s pointed words to the PMO on why the panel had not met pushed the Centre into convening CRA.