Farmers suffering in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Cauvery team tells Supreme Court
A technical team on the Cauvery water dispute has told the Supreme Court that Karnataka and Tamil Nadu saw 50 per cent deficit rainfall, and farmers in both states were suffering due to insufficient water in the Cauvery basin. The team, however, did not recommend the quantum of water to be released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu.
Ahead of a hearing by a three-judge apex court Bench headed by Justice Dipak Verma on Tuesday, the team in its ground reality report said the only source of water for irrigation in these areas is surface water from Mettur reservoir.
It said Tamil Nadu government’s relief effort via providing subsidised agricultural inputs can bear fruits only when sufficient water is made available for the full crop period.
“The flows in the four reservoirs of Karnataka as on 13.10.2016 are 49.70 per cent of the 29 years average flows. The live storages in Karnataka reservoirs as on 13.10.2016 is 22.90 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) and the storages in Mettur at the end of the same period is 31.66 TMC,” the team headed by G.S. Jha, chairman of the Central Water Commission, said in its report.
“...The total water requirement of Tamil Nadu therefore becomes 163.0 TMC against the expected availability of 143.18 TMC upto the end of May, 2017. In the current year Tamil Nadu has gone for only single Samba crop in the command area of Mettur reservoir to be cultivated in 12 lakh acres for which the government is expected to provide irrigation water,” the report said.
Karnataka has sown an area of 6.15 lakh acres under four reservoirs. and about 1.88 lakh acres have withered away, it said.
“In the absence of required water the labour employment for farming and fishing is also limited creating a scenario of unemployment and financial hardship to them. There has been large number of suicides reported in Mandya district of Karnataka,” the report said.
“The Government of Karnataka has declared 42 out of 48 Talukas under Cauvery basin as drought affected Talukas based on Central Government guidelines,” it said.
