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Jayalalithaa walks out of Cauvery meet

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Jayalalithaa and S.M. Krishna at a meeting on Cauvery water issue in New Delhi on Tuesday. — Photo: S. Arneja.

New Delhi Aug. 27. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today walked out of a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, a body she had always considered ``toothless,'' as the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's efforts to find a solution to the water-sharing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka failed to make a headway.

Her protest action against the ``delay'' in evolving a distress sharing formula with Karnataka notwithstanding, the Union Water Resources Minister, Arjun Sethi, claimed that the meeting had ``unanimously'' decided that the details of the distress sharing formula would be worked out by the Cauvery River Monitoring Committee within a fortnight.

The next meeting of the CRA would be held in the third week of September to arrive at an agreed formula.

Mr. Vajpayee, in his concluding remarks, proposed such a meeting of the Authority to arrive at an agreed distress sharing formula, which would ensure equal distribution of water to the Cauvery basin states.

``If we succeed in arriving at an agreed formula for pro-rata sharing when we meet next, we will create a historic decision of which Indian democracy could be proud of. I am sure I would have your cooperation in doing so.'' Ms. Jayalalithaa walked out at the end of the meeting saying this would only further delay release of water to Tamil Nadu. She accused Karnataka of perpetuating injustice on Tamil Nadu in the release of Cauvery water. — PTI

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