PM Modi holds meeting to discuss Cauvery water issue

PM Modi meet officials to discuss various options to iron out the differences between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Earlier a meeting convened by Uma Bharti failed to reach an agreement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting to discuss the Cauvery river water-sharing issue over which Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been at loggerheads.

Some ministers and officials were present in the meeting where various options were discussed to resolve the matter.

A meeting convened by the Centre to iron out differences between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka on the impasse had on Thursday failed to achieve any breakthrough.

At the meeting convened by Union water resources minister Uma Bharti, Tamil Nadu refused to accept Karnataka's proposal that an expert committee be sent to the river basin to assess water availability.

Tamil Nadu has been demanding release of its share in the river water which has been rejected by neighbouring Karnataka citing its requirements for drinking and irrigation purposes.

The Tamil Nadu government has been insisting on implementing the Supreme Court's September 27 order to release 6,000 cusecs of water in three days and setting up of a Cauvery Management Board.

At Thursday's meeting, Tamil Nadu accused upper riparian Karnataka of treating with "utter contempt" Supreme Court's orders on river water sharing and defying them "deliberately and systematically".

It alleged that Karnataka has not released the stipulated annual water quantum of 192 TMC ft, as ordered by Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in its final order in 2007, in any of the years, "except when the reservoirs in Karnataka could not hold the surplus flows".