The Supreme Court on February 16, 2018 delivered the judgment on the dispute over the 120-year old Couvery river water sharing. The disagreements over the water sharing pact have been at the centre of dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Couvery originates in Karnataka's Kodagu district, flows into Tamil Nadu, and reaches the bay of Bengal at Poompuhar.
- New allocations by Apex Court
The Supreme Court raised the 270 tmcft share of Couvery water for Karnataka by 14.75 tmcft and reduced Tamil nadu's share while compensating it by allowing extraction of 10 tmcft groundwater from the river basin. Tamil nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Union Territory Puducherry would now be annually entitled to 404.25 tmcft, 284.75 tmcft, 30 tmcft and 7 tmcft of Couvery water respectively out of a total of 740 tmcft. The apex court concurred with the 2007 findings of the CWDT with regard to the water share of 30 tmcft to Kerala and 7 tmcft to Puducherry. Besides this, 10 thousand million cubic feet of water would be used for environment protection and 4 tmcft would be kept for inevitable escapages into the sea.
- previous allocation by tribunal
The Couvery water Dispute Tribunal award of February 5, 2007, which was notified in the gazette on February 19, 2013, had allocated 419 tmcft, 270 tmcft, 30 tmcft and 7 tmcft of water yearly to Tamil nadu, karnataka, kerala and Puducherry respectively.
- Reasons behind increase in karnataka's share
A three-judge bench headed by Chief justice Dipak Misra justified the increase in Karnataka's share by taking note of the principle on drinking water and the "global status" acquired by the state capital and the IT city of Bengaluru. The tribunal had drastically reduced the share of karnataka towards domestic and industrial purpose for the reason beig that onbly 1/3rd of the city of Bengaluru falls within the river basin and also on the presumption that 50 per cent of the drinding water requirement would be met from ground water supply.
The bench granted six weeks time to the Centre to formulate a scheme to ensure compliance of its 465- page judgement, which modified the CWDT award and made it clear that it will not be extending time for this on any ground. It said the order on Couvery water allocation will continue for the next 15 years.
An inter-State river like Couvery is a 'national asset' and being in a state of flow, no state can claim exclusive ownership of its waters or asset a prescriptive right so as to deprive other states of their equitable share, the Court said. Basing its Judgment on the equitable utilisation of inter-state riger waters, the court said the precious right should be equally and reasonably share by all States concerned. However, the court said the "principle of equality" among the riparian states does not imply equal division of water. The top court said, equality here means "equal consideration and equal economic opportunity of the co-basin states."
