BENGALURU: When the reservoirs in Karnataka, especially those in Cauvery belt are almost bone dry, the Supreme Court’s direction to release 2,000 cusecs of water till next hearing in July comes as a jolt to the state government.
Water Resources Minister M B Patil has expressed dismay at the Supreme Court order directing Karnataka to continue releasing 2,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu on daily basis till further orders. Reacting to the Supreme Court order, Patil said,
“When there is no water to meet even drinking water needs of our own people, how can we release water to Tamil Nadu? There is no question of releasing water under the prevailing conditions.”
According to data from Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, there is around 9.96tmcft water available in the four major reservoirs along Cauvery belt as against 16.19tmcft last year on March 21.
Every month, Bengaluru gets around 1.5tmcft of water and another 1 tmcft water is required to provide drinking water to Mysuru, Mandya, Ramanagara, Chennapatna and Chamarajnagar. “Monsoon is expected in second week of June.
This means we need to manage for nearly three months,” said a senior official from Urban Development department.
Captain S Raja Rao, a water expert and former Chief Engineer, State Water Resource Development Organisation, told Express that though 9.96tmcft of water is available in the reservoirs (live storage), around 3tmcft of water will evaporate due to the heat.
“Around 11,000 cusecs of water is equal to 1tmcft and going by this, we might have to send more than 5tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu,” he said.