Part-2: Disturbed River Basins and Central Tribunals

Shortly after the 2007 Kaveri river tribunal verdict was announced in February, the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) came out with a critic of this verdict, a verdict that was much awaited by all three states - Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala. Writing in this critic of the verdict - "Why the Cauvery Award is Flawed," Mr Himanshu Thakkar exposes the three important measures on which this verdict fails - science, efficiency and equity. Interpreting the verdict award as biased, Mr Thakkar writes thus about the sad situation Karnataka is put into:

The Karnataka state officials have given an indication of feeling aggrieved by the Tribunal Award... we can see that indeed Karnataka is the only state that has got less share in water than its share in the catchment of the Cauvery basin. When we add the fact that Karnataka area of Cauvery basin has less groundwater availability, we see that there is some justification [sic] this feeling.

Riding on common man's ignorance about (and indifference towards) rivers and water situation in general, central tribunal verdicts such as the Kaveri tribunal verdict in Feb 2007 seem to conveniently ignore the fundamental principles of hydrology and man's water need patterns, and devise water sharing formulae that only politically strengthen the central coalition.

Declaring that this verdict fails the test of science, SANDRP exposes how the verdict fails to take note of the ground water levels in riparian states while arriving at a water sharing formula. It further describes how this is harmful to each of the riparian states even though the formula, at its outset, might seem beneficial to the politically stronger state! This comment summarizes the concern these states must have about such unscientific water awards:

The Cauvery Award fails on the test of science as it does not consider groundwater availability in the Cauvery basin area while deciding the distribution of only the surface  water among the claimants. Tamil Nadu, being the lower riparian, has significant availability of groundwater, while Karnataka and Kerala, being the upper riparian, have relatively little of it... To allow unrestricted groundwater use and not to include groundwater in calculating water availability and allocation, is unscientific, to put it rather charitably.

Although one cannot directly attribute such unscientific water awards to the center's interference in solving inter-state river water sharing problems, one can certainly find action of coalition forces, at the center, responsible. Such forces compel the central government to ignore common sense in the field of hydrology and arrive at formulae that only strengthen the central coalition, in turn causing slow but steady degradation of priceless river water basins. The continued scant water awards Karnataka has been receiving as opposed to Tamilnadu, the other big Kaveri riparian, have made most areas of Karnataka in the Kaveri basin so deprived of river water for basic human processes that in many urban settlements ground water resources are being abused beyond healthy measures, steadily emptying the already poor ground water levels of Kaveri basin in Karnataka (p 74).

Hence, centralization - delegation of this responsibility to settle inter-state disputes about a vital local resource called water to the center - is surely not benefiting the states in question, but only paving new political ways to steadily destroy water bodies and create poor lifestyles for citizens in these states. There is an urgent need for democracy to surface in its real form in water matters and install a correct methodology to settle water disputes in future. As Mr Thakkar, in his conclusion, remarks:

Indeed, amicable solution of river water disputes is possible only when there is greater democracy in water resources planning and decision making, something that is totally missing today.,

there is an urgent need to educate ourselves about the need to decentralize such important matters and allow states to engage in useful dialog to eventually arrive at a more comprehensive and less deleterious water sharing formulae. It is high time the states realized they're their own awarders and awardees when it comes to river water sharing.