THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Mullaperiyar dam issue in favour of Tamil Nadu, attention will now turn southward to the waters of Neyyar reservoir in Thiruvananthapuram district.
The dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over these waters is also pending before the Supreme Court.
Having deferred the hearing in November last year, the Supreme Court asked the two sides to work out their stand on the issue before submitting it to the court.
“We have not received any fresh directives and are waiting to know the next hearing dates,” said P Lathika, chief engineer, Irrigation Department. Tamil Nadu had filed a suit against Kerala in 2012 for “unilaterally and arbitrarily” stopping the release of water to its side from the reservoir from 2004. Till then, the water from the reservoir, supplied by its left bank canal, had been used to irrigate over 9,200 acres in Vilavancode taluk of Kanyakumari district.
As in the case of Periyar, Tamil Nadu asserts that Neyyar is an inter-state river stating that a part of its catchment area falls in Kanyakumari, a claim that Kerala has rejected. While several high-level talks between the two states have taken place before the matter was taken to court, they did not yield any result. With Tamil Nadu filing a suit, Kerala had filed a counter-affidavit last year.
While Tamil Nadu claims it is entitled to get 150 cusecs of water from Neyyar dam for irrigation every year, Kerala maintains that there has been no written agreements on the release of Neyyar waters to Tamil Nadu. With the coming of the Kerala Irrigation and Water (Conservation) Act 2003, Kerala stopped the release of water to Tamil Nadu.
This was as per clause 30 of the Act which governs the distribution of water to another state or union territory. Under the clause “No water from a watercourse in the State shall be distributed to any other state or union territory except in accordance with an agreement between the state government and government of such other state or union territory in terms of a resolution to that effect passed by the Legislative Assembly of the State.”
In 2006, the State Assembly had passed a resolution which agreed to supply water for agricultural purposes in Vilavancode taluk and sought to levy charges - “nothing exceeding necessary expenses” as former Water Resources minister N K Premachandran informed the Assembly in 2008 - and sent a draft agreement to Tamil Nadu. However, the two states are yet to settle the differences on the issue.