The Cauvery basin reservoirs in Karnataka are facing a 42.54 per cent shortfall in inflow due to poor monsoon in the catchment areas, says Cauvery Water Management Authority.
The CWMA, in its minutes of the meeting held last week here, said that from June 1, 2023, to August 9, 2023, four reservoirs in Karnataka --- Kabini, Harangi, Hemavathy and KRS --- are facing a 42.54 per cent shortfall in its cumulative inflows compared to last 30 years’ average.
According to the minutes, the upstream of KRS received 23 per cent less rainfall while upstream of Kabini received 22 per cent less rainfall from June 1 to August 10. The entire Cauvery belt, both in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, received 19 per cent less than normal rainfall.
In the meeting, Karnataka said that the live storage, in its four reservoirs as of June 1, was 24.352 tmcft whereas the Mettur reservoir in Tamil Nadu had a live storage of 69.77 tmcft. The storage in Mettur reservoir, as on August 7, was drastically lowered to 22.86 tmcft after Tamil Nadu began releasing water from June 12 for crops. The rainfall in the catchment, after Biligundlu up to Mettur was normal and hence, with the addition of flows generated after Biligundlu, the availability for Tamil Nadu at Mettur would have been more than 83.83 tmcft. However, Tamil Nadu used more than 60.97 tmcft of water starting from June 12 to August 7, Karnataka said.
Karnataka also said, “The Cauvery Tribunal had allocated 32.27 tmcft for Kuruvai crop on 1,85,100 acres only. But Tamil Nadu has used about two times the allocation for the crop. Tamil Nadu, ignoring the fact that flow in the catchment upstream of Biligundlu, being sub-normal, opened up extensive areas for irrigation much more than that permitted by the Tribunal for Kuruvai crops and deliberately diminished storage in Mettur dam to seek water release from Karnataka reservoirs knowing fully well that carryover storage needs to be accounted for during the current water year.”
Karnataka said that after keeping water in its reservoirs for drinking water, it does not have sufficient storage to provide water for irrigation purposes, even for 50% of the area considered by the Tribunal. Its water storage has been the result of the non-release of water to the canals so far. The CWMA, in its order, also asked Karnataka to ensure flow at the rate of 10,000 cusec realised at Biligundlu starting from August 12 for the next 15 days.