Cauvery and Mekong

Lawyers don’t understand the difference between water as a ‘stock’ and ‘flow’, among other deficiencies. No wonder those Tribunals and Awards don’t solve any disputes. I had raised this point in the discussion on the national water framework law, on which I had chaired a committee which submitted its report to the Government in 2013. Interestingly, this aspect has been highlighted again in the recent Supreme Court award on the Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The chief minister of Karnataka had requested the Prime Minister to call a meeting of the party States to fix this year’s quota. In fact in 1995, when asked to arbitrate in a water-sharing dispute following an SC directive, I had suggested that a three-layer system should be implemented, as in the case of the Mekong Basin, among the entities that share the river’s water.

This dispute resolution system, at the highest level political, at the second level coordinative and at the third level a delivery apparatus, was implemented and has worked reasonably well there. It has made its way to the Draft National Water Framework Bill 2016, which is now up for public comments. This is based on the Report of the committee for Drafting of National Water Framework Law, chaired by me, which submitted its report May 2013.

In Jal Manthan 2, the Central Water Commission presented it again for discussion. Surprisingly, there has been no discussion on the water framework Bill, considering that water is again a critical issue in India’s federal politics.

In my report, I had pointed out that the earlier awards did not take into account the extensive use of groundwater in the Cauvery delta. Now, the SC has considered this as a flow account. But the important fact is how the legal awards don’t distinguish between average flows in thousand million cubic feet (TMC ft) and the actual flows in a particular year.

So, the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal’s award of 270 TMC water (284.75 TMC now, after the SC verdict) to Karnataka (out of the total availability of 740 TMC in a normal year in the Cauvery basin) and 419 TMC to Tamil Nadu (404.25 TMC now) is a no-brainer considering that the flows are terribly reduced for the year.

Needless to say, everybody is happy when you allocate to them water from average flows. When they find out that that allocation will not be available when the flows are less as in a drought year the knives will be out. The Mekong formula can work better here. The Mekong countries too had conflicts over water.

The countries set up a three-tier dispute resolution mechanism, at the lowest level of which was a committee of water officials, much like the proposed Water Management Board in the Cauvery. But when this panel failed, as it would in a scarcity year, the differences would go to a senior officials’ committee. If this failed, it goes to the political level (chief ministers chaired by the PM).

Such a system was implemented even in the Cauvery but was jettisoned. That was a mistake.

The writer is a former Union minister

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