Release of water to TN inevitable: Karnataka government

BENGALURU: As Karnataka began the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu amid snowballing protests by farmers, the government on Tuesday said it was “inevitable”

BENGALURU: As Karnataka began the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu amid snowballing protests by farmers, the government on Tuesday said it was “inevitable” for it to comply with the Supreme Court order even though the state itself was facing “serious distress.”

HT Image

The Supreme Court would be moved seeking modification of its order to spare 15,000 cusecs of water for 10 days because of the difficulties in implementing it given that the live storage in four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin now was 46.7 TMC ft against their capacity of 104 TMC ft, the government said.

Officials confirmed that water was being let out, shortly after the all-party meeting called by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who said the decision to obey the Supreme Court order has been taken with “a heavy heart” even though the state itself faced “severe distress.”

The present live storage is 45% against the live storage of 104 TMCFT in the Krishnaraja Sagar, Harangi, Hemavathi and Kabini reservoirs, the sources pointed out.