The Hindu : PM may talk to Jayalalithaa, Krishna

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 25, 2002

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PM may talk to Jayalalithaa, Krishna

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI JUNE 24. Even as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka continue to be at loggerheads over the release of Cauvery water, the Water Resources Minister, Arjun Charan Sethi, today apprised the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, of the storage position in the reservoirs of the two States at a meeting convened by Mr. Vajpayee at his residence. The officials of the PMO and the Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, attended it.

According to Government sources, in the light of the discussions, the Prime Minister is expected to talk to the Chief Ministers of both the States and if necessary, invite them for talks to hammer out a solution.

The possibility of a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) is also being explored, notwithstanding the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa's decision to boycott it. The sources say that the Centre is hopeful of convincing her to attend the meeting.

Mr. Vajpayee's initiative follows a letter from Ms. Jayalalithaa, which sought his intervention to persuade Karnataka to implement the interim directions of the Cauvery Tribunal. She also wanted the CRA to be vested with more powers.

Ms. Jayalalithaa had announced that Tamil Nadu would boycott the future meetings of the CRA on the ground that the CRA and the monitoring committee had not insisted that Karnataka implement the Tribunal order.

She also said that the State would file a fresh suit in the Supreme Court in this regard. Responding, the Karnakata Chief Minister, S. M. Krishna, expressed the State's inability to release water to Tamil Nadu for the `kuruvai' cultivation.

Concerned over the developments, Mr. Vajpayee asked Mr. Sethi to furnish all the details regarding the storage position in the reservoirs of both the States in the last 10 years, along with the rainfall figures.

At the meeting today, Mr. Sethi reportedly told Mr. Vajpayee that the storage level in the reservoirs of Karnataka this year was the lowest in the last 10 years. Also, the deficiency of rainfall ranged between 10 and 47 per cent in the catchment areas. The sources said that the Prime Minister was expected to brief the two Chief Ministers on the factual position in the two States and decide on the future course of action based on their response.

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