Cauvery Tribunal meeting unlikely to take up Makedatu dam issue

Chennai, June 10 (BPNS)

The Cauvery Tribunal meeting to be held in New Delhi on June 16 is unlikely to take up the Mekedatu dam issue which has been a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. 

With the Congress government in Karnataka announcing that it has allocated an amount of Rs 8000 crore for the construction of Mekedatu dam across Cauvery, pressure has started building up in Tamil Nadu. The state water resources minister, S. Duraimurugan strongly stated that Tamil Nadu would not allow such a construction across the Cauvery.

However the Cauvery Tribunal will not take a decision on the issue as it has taken a position to take ‘Uniform stand’ on the issue pertaining Mekedatu or for that matter anything associated with Cauvery basin as the matter was before the Supreme Court of India on a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government on the Mekedatu issue.

It may be noted that Tamil Nadu has been consistently opposing Karnataka raising the Mekdatu dam issue. In the petition filed before the Supreme Court of India, Tamil Nadu has stated that the planning of the Mekedatu dam across the Cauvery river was in gross violation of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal verdict of February 5, 2007.

According to sources in the Tamil Nadu water resources department, the state would try to push the case of Mekedatu dam before the Cauvery Tribunal.