It was only to be expected that the Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu would once again flare up in a rain-deficient year. And so it did in Mysuru district over the release of water from the Kabini dam to Tamil Nadu. The tired rhetoric of recrimination is back; it does not matter who the political actors are. An old dispute has been complicated by unsustainable urbanisation and agriculture, in that order. With erratic rainfall now the norm, the assumptions of the February 2007 award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal have become questionable.

The award is based on water yield on the basis of 50 per cent “dependability”, which means it will fall below the average availability of 740 TMC in half the number of years. It does not spell out a sharing formula for different levels of shortfall. Nor does the award adequately take groundwater availability into account, as has been pointed out by the South Asia Network of Dams, Rivers and People. A dynamic assessment of surface and groundwater levels would have led to a different ‘formula’. But the management of river basins cannot be left to tribunals and bureaucracies. We need forums for dialogue between stakeholders in upper riparian and lower riparian States, involving sensible politicians and civil society members. As for the rabble-rousers who cry for the ‘rights’ of one State over another, why do they never agitate over ‘their’ rivers being killed by pollution and sand mining?

While agriculture accounts for 80 per cent of water use, the share of industry and domestic use is increasing rapidly. Paddy and sugarcane are water guzzlers. But a rice producer is surely of greater social worth than a soft drinks manufacturer who pumps gallons of water out of the ground, or a builder of luxury highrises.

Water disputes are about how we live — a critique of our idea of development.

Senior Deputy Editor

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