Karnataka filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking review of a directive to the state to release 2. 44 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu.
The review petition, filed by advocate-on-record V N Raghupathy averred that the apex court had on February 7 considered the report of the three-member expert team and rejected the contentions raised in the “response” with supporting affidavit of R Subramaniam - chairman of the Cauvery Technical Cell - circulated by Tamil Nadu.
The SC had directed Karnataka to release water to replenish Mettur for the standing crops in the in TN’s Cauvery delta region.
The court had observed that the release of water would not deprive Karnataka of its drinking water requirements for Bangalore. Karnataka said the above directions require reconsideration.
It said that in case of a delay in the onset of monsoon, their would be a shortage of water and that life in the Cauvery basin of Karnataka, particularly on Bangalore city, would be hit.
Karnataka said it had estimated the drinking water requirement at 11.60 tmc ft up to June 15, 2013 based on the total estimation of 23 tmc ft made by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee from October 15, 2012 onwards at the rate of 2.90 tmc ft per month.
However, it appears, if the onset of monsoon is delayed beyond June 15, the drinking water requirement in Karnataka needs to be met from the waters of this year. It said the storages in state reservoirs as on January 31 was 14.27 tmc ft.
With expected inflows from February to May, the total storage would be 18.17 tmc ft. But the total requirement is 24.25 tmc ft and the water balance study would show that the shortage would be 6.08 tmc ft, Karnataka stated. If 2.44 tmc ft of water is released to TN, the shortage would increase to 8.52 tmc ft.
Karnataka also stated that pursuant to the order dated February 4, TN had already released 1.14 tmc ft of water from Mettur reservoir.The remaining water requirement of TN would be 1.30 tmc ft. However, the live storage at Mettur as on February 6 was 8.463 tmc ft.
Hence, the remaining water can be drawn from Mettur, still leaving 7.163 tmc ft in the reservoir, Karnataka felt.