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CRA decision satisfactory: Shettar

By Our Special Correspondent

HUBLI Sept. 9. The Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Jagadish Shettar, has described the decision of Cauvery River Authority (CRA) to direct Karnataka to release 0.8 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu as satisfactory.

Mr. Shettar was camping in New Delhi along with the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, in a bid to persuade the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, to convene an urgent meeting of the CRA. He said the main advantage of the new arrangement was that the release of water would be calculated on a weekly basis rather than on a daily basis as directed by the Supreme Court. The new arrangement gave a certain amount of flexibility to the State on the quantum of water to be released. It was enough if the State ensured that the week's quota was made available to Tamil Nadu.

Mr. Shettar said that by seeking the intervention of the Prime Minister to call a meeting of the CRA for a decision, the State had been able to take the issue out of the legal framework and bring it back into the political forum.

It was open to the State to seek another meeting of the CRA in case there was any difficulty in releasing the quantum of water fixed by the CRA.

He said what had been agreed upon at the CRA meeting was similar to what the State had offered at the meeting of the Cauvery Monitoring Committee. According to Mr. Shettar, the State gave a written undertaking expressing its willingness to release 8,000 cusecs of water, while Tamil Nadu scaled down its requirement to 10,000 cusecs. The Prime Minister, as a via media, arrived at the figure of 0.8 tmcft, which would roughly come to around 9,000 cusecs, he said.

On the reported move by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, to approach the Supreme Court again, Mr. Shettar said that might not be fruitful. In all likelihood, the Supreme Court would not entertain such a plea. The court had recognised the role of the CRA and the directive to release 1.25 tmcft daily was only a temporary measure till a decision was taken by the CRA.

The basis of the new arrangement was that the State Government was expecting rains in the near future. In the event of lack of rainfall in the next couple of days, the State may again have to approach the CRA, he said.

Asked how the Government hoped to convince the farmers of Mandya and Mysore districts, who were already agitated and had strongly opposed any move to release water, Mr. Shettar said it was for the Chief Minister to decide what had to be done. Had the Government prepared the farmers mentally for the possibility of water being released to Tamil Nadu, instead of harping on not releasing even a drop of water, matters would have been all right.

Even in the Supreme Court, it was this inflexible stand taken by the State that ultimately landed the Government in trouble. The embarrassment caused by the court directing the Government to release water could have been avoided if the State had made it clear as to how much it could or could not release, he added.

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