Carving up the Cauvery

The Supreme Court has reprimanded the Centre over its failure to set up a board to manage the distribution of water from the Cauvery to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. In February, the court ordered the government to execute a water-sharing formula worked out, the court said, after much consideration. “We struggled hard to render the Cauvery judgment... people of both states should understand and nothing should be done to hamper the implementation of the judgment,” said Chief Justice Dipak Misra. There have been protests, leading to the cancellation of IPL cricket matches in Chennai. Assembly polls in Karnataka are scheduled for May 12, and the court has asked the government to formulate a plan by May 3.

6

Weeks between the Supreme Court’s midFebruary order and the March deadline by which the Centre was to form the Cauvery Management Board

3

Months requested by the Centre to implement the order. Rejected by the court after a contempt petition is filed by the Tamil Nadu government

802 km

Length of Cauvery river; 54% of the basin area, or 44,016 sq. km, is in Tamil Nadu and 42%—34,273 sq. km— is in Karnataka

425

Cauvery inflow from Karnataka, measured in thousand million cubic feet (TMC); 252 TMC from Tamil Nadu. Based on this, Karnataka wanted a more even distribution

177.25 TMC

Amount of water the SC wants Karnataka to supply Tamil Nadu for the next 15 years, down from 192 TMC. Total for Tamil Nadu: 414.25 TMC out of 740 TMC water

270 TMC

Karnataka’s share of the water awarded by a tribunal in 2007. The Supreme Court has raised this by 14.75 TMC, making the state’s total close to 284.75 TMC

4.75 TMC

Of the SC’s additional 14.75 TMC for Karnataka earmarked for Bengaluru alone. The city was among 11 others the BBC declared “most likely to run out of drinking water”