Ahead of the assembly polls in Karnataka, the friction over the unresolved water-sharing dispute between the state and Tamil Nadu over the Mekedatu dam project on the Cauvery basin has resurfaced yet again.
The reason this time is Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai’s 2023-2024 state budget where he said that efforts would be made to start work on the project. Last year, Rs 1,000 crore was set aside for commencing the construction of the Rs 9,000 crore reservoir.

The proposed dam with a capacity of 67.16 thousand million cubic ft. (tmc ft) will help produce 400 MW of hydro power. More importantly, the project has been pitched to meet drinking water needs of Bengaluru and the neighbouring suburbs and Ramnagara.

Tamil Nadu the lower riparian state has claimed that the project is against the interest of the state’s water requirement. “Before every election, this is an agenda that Karnataka brings up. The matter is in court, and we will legally move against this,” Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) organisational secretary R.S. Bharathi told ThePrint on Bommai’s remark.

“The lower riparian state has to give its no-objection for any project that comes up on the Cauvery as per the Cauvery tribunal and Supreme Court order,” G. Sundarrajan, an activist with environmental organisation Poovulagin Nanbargal (Friends of the Earth), told ThePrint.

In 2018, the Supreme Court revised the 2007 Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) and brought down Tamil Nadu’s share from 192 tmcft to 177.25 tmcft. Karnataka saw its share of water go up by an additional 14.75 tmcft of water, of which 4.75 tmcft was set aside to meet the drinking and domestic purposes of Bengaluru.