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Vajpayee govt notifies new Cauvery scheme

The Union government on Tuesday formally notified the revised scheme cleared by the chief ministers of the four riparian states to implement the seven-year-old interim award of the Cauvery water tribunal, notwithstanding stiff opposition from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham.

The revised scheme notified by the government includes the constitution of the Cauvery River Authority. It will have the prime minister as chairperson and the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Pondicherry as members.

The authority would give effect to the implementation of the interim order of the tribunal, and all its related subsequent orders.

The notification assumes significance since the Centre has to meet the August 12 deadline set by the Supreme Court for formulating the scheme.

The monitoring committee, the role of which was under dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, will be headed by the secretary of the water resources ministry, and will include the chief secretaries of the four states.

The other members are: the chairman of the Central Water Commission and one officer each, not below the rank of a chief engineer, to be nominated by the four states. The chief engineer of the CWC will be the member-secretary.

The committee's role has been spelt out clearly in the notification. It will render assistance to the authority to enable it to take decisions on issues under consideration. It will also assist the authority in monitoring the implementation of its decisions.

Further, the committee will assist the authority in setting up a well-designed hydro-meteorological network in Cauvery basin along with a modern communication system for transmission of data, and a computer-based control room for data-processing to determine the hydrological conditions in the basin.

The notification said the monitoring committee shall meet at least once in three months. The headquarters of the Cauvery river authority will be at New Delhi.

All the capital and revenue expenditure incurred by the authority will be borne by the Central government till the issue of sharing of cost among the states is settled, either by mutual consent or by the tribunal.

UNI

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