CHENNAI: Strongly objecting to another attempt by Karnataka to get clearance from the Central Water Commission (CWC) to construct a balancing reservoir across the Cauvery river at Mekedatu, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in the matter.
In a letter to Modi on Tuesday, Palaniswami requested the PM to ask the Union Water Resources Ministry to stop Karnataka from processing the feasibility report on building the dam across the Cauvery. He urged him to direct the Ministry not to give consent to any projects on the Cauvery without obtaining prior concurrence of Tamil Nadu and other basin States.
Karnataka had violated the final award of Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal by seeking clearance for the dam without sharing the plan with co-basin States for consent, he charged. It had planned to implement the balancing reservoir-cum-drinking water project with an installed capacity of 400mw at an estimated cost of `5,912 crore at Mekedatu.
“In a federal structure, no upper riparian State should unilaterally interfere with natural flow of an inter-State river without the consent and concurrence of the lower riparian States,” the CM said, adding that CWC should have advised Karnataka to get concurrence of TN and other co-basin States at the outset.