Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the proposed Mekedatu project. He has urged the Centre to safeguard the interests of lower riparian states and ensure that any decision on this project aligns with the verdict of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) and the Supreme Court’s judgment on the Cauvery water dispute. In the letter, Vijay referred to a statement made by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti in the Rajya Sabha in response to a question about the Mekedatu project. The Minister had stated that the Supreme Court’s judgment dated February 16, 2018, did not explicitly mandate that Karnataka must obtain the consent of lower riparian states before constructing any structure on the Cauvery River. Describing the response as “disappointing,” he remarked that it appeared to have been given without regard for the existing legal position and established laws concerning the consent of lower riparian states. The Chief Minister cited the Constitution Bench’s judgment in the ‘State of Karnataka vs. State of Andhra Pradesh’ case regarding the Almatti project. He noted that the Supreme Court had ruled that Karnataka could not undertake such construction work without the consent of the lower riparian state, as such consent is essential. Referring to the CWDT award, Vijay stated that the Supreme Court had explicitly upheld Clause XVIII of the Tribunal’s award. Under this clause, each state may regulate water within its territory only in accordance with the Tribunal’s directives. He argued that any project affecting the regulated flow of the Cauvery must be examined based on its compliance with the award. He also cited the Tribunal’s observations regarding Kerala’s Pambar Hydro-electric project. In that instance, even though the water usage amounted to only 0.1 TMC, the tribunal directed Kerala and Tamil Nadu to jointly determine a water release schedule to ensure that irrigation in downstream areas was not adversely affected. According to Vijay, this demonstrates that the tribunal prioritized not only the annual water allocation but also the regulation of water releases that impact the interests of downstream (lower riparian) regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the proposed Mekedatu project. He<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1965,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions\/1965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fivestarbuleetin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}