The Cauvery Supervisory Committee in its seventh meeting held in New Delhi under the Chairmanship of Union Water Resources Secretary Shri Shashi Shekhar directed Karnataka to release 3000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu from 21st to 30th September 2016. The supervisory committee took into consideration the interest of all the participating states, the inflow position, rain fall picture, daily inflow of water in the reservoirs of Karnataka, the drinking water of needs Karnataka and the need of samba crop in Tamil Nadu.
The committee took a detailed presentation from the Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and the representative from Kerala. The committee tried to reach to a conclusion but Tamil Nadu and Karnataka did not agree to a particular figure of release of water which was based on scientific facts.
It has also been decided that Central Water Commission will draw up a new protocol of online collection of data related to rainfall and flow of water on real time basis which may be shared simultaneously with all the concerned states. The cost of developing this protocol will be shared by the three states and UT of Puducherry.
The supervisory committee will meet frequently to access the situation and needs in the future. The next meeting will be held in sometimes in October. The committee will meet once in every month from February 2017 onwards.
Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu Dr P Rama Mohana Rao, Chief Secretary of Karnataka Shri Arvind Jadhav, Chief Secretary of Puducherry Shri Manoj Parida and representative from Kerala, Chairman, Central Water Commission, DG National Water Development Agency and Senior officials from Union Water Resources Ministry attended the meeting.