Rivers silting ties among southern states

CHENNAI | COIMBATORE | HYDERABAD | THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Kerala v/s Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu v/s Karnataka, Karnataka v/s Andhra Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh v/s Maharashtra. That reads like the south zone draw for the Santosh Trophy football tournament, but it isn’t so. That is a not-so-sporting line-up of southern states disputing river waters and dams.

In a nutshell, the wrangling goes like this: Kerala and Tamil Nadu are disputing the height and safety of the century-old Mullaperiyar dam on their border, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are fighting it out over the pattern of water sharing from the Cauvery river, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh cannot agree over the height of the Alamati dam over the Krishna river, and Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are eyeballing each other over the Babhli dam on the Godavari river.

Inter-state discussions on the matter have been as meandering as the rivers in question, and there is little optimism on any of the disputes reaching an early end. Tribunals have been established for dispute redressal, but their awards have taken years to come. The Cauvery Tribunal award, for instance, came after 18 years, and has later been contested.

TN CM M Karunanidhi had proposed the interlinking of the rivers, but the proposal is yet to be taken forward in a serious manner. Political expediency is widely perceived to be at the heart of the problem, an allegation that even politicians are not denying.

Says Kerala water resources minister N K Premachandran: “There are political reasons for different parties to take conflicting stands. A quick resolution of inter-state water disputes, therefore, looks highly unlikely. The ideal situation would be for statesmen-politicians to emerge and take rational decisions.”

Says S Janakarajan, professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, and convenor of Cauvery Family: “Instead of harping on issues like riparian rights, the states should work out an ideal water-sharing formula. For a start, they should foster relationship between the delta farmers of TN and Karnataka and restore information flow between them.”