Meeting for the first time in nine years, the Cauvery River Authority’s session tomorrow is expected to be a stormy affair with Tamil Nadu set to demand more water from the Cauvery river to save its standing crops while Karnataka is expected to seek a new policy to share water.

The CRA, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would meet tomorrow evening and will be attended by the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. It will be preceded by day-long discussions among officials from the member-States with the Water Resources Ministry authorities.

CRA, set up in 1997, is meeting for the first time after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power in 2004. The last meeting was held in February 2003 when A. B. Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.

The much-awaited meeting comes after a demand by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa that a meeting of the CRA should be convened to discuss the State’s water problem while flagging the need for the immediate release of water from the Cauvery river to save standing crops.

The State, which is fighting a legal battle against Karnataka on the water issue, has also complained to the Supreme Court about the non-convening of such a meeting, prompting the apex court to pull up PMO officials for the inordinate delay.

Both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which have been battling the issue for over two decades, are expected to stick to their respective stands.

Karnataka has already made it clear that it would demand a new formula to share Cauvery water with Tamil Nadu and other States when the monsoon fails.

It would also seek a “fresh distress formula based on the ground realities”. Karnataka has refused to release water to Tamil Nadu and other riparian states on a formula announced by the Cauvery River Tribunal in 2007 citing a failed monsoon.

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