Water Disputes in the Cauvery River Basin, India: What Next?

Guido Schmidt and Nitin Bassi

Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) of India has given a final verdict on the decades’ long dispute on water distribution in the inter-state Cauvery river basin, including a slight change in water allocation from the one under the order given by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (constituted as per the Inter-State Water Disputes Act of 1956) in 2007. As per the SC’s decision, Karnataka is set to get 284.75 Thousand Million Cubic Feet (TMC), Tamil Nadu 404.25 TMC, Kerala 30 TMC and Puducherry 7 TMC of water during a normal rainfall year. The court also made it clear that the final water ‘award’ should stand unchanged for the next 15 years, when it shall be revised.

In the concerned states (mainly Karnataka and Tami Nadu), water users and politicians have made a large number of comments on the issue related to sharing of water from Cauvery. Recently Noolkar-Oak and Manubarwala have published a comprehensive assessment (Why Supreme Court's Cauvery verdict is a precursor to intense water wars ahead, published by DailyO in their 23rd Feb 2018 issue) referring to many short-falls of the verdict, such as the lack of references to “poor” water availability years, and climate change and demand-control measures. These are crucial considerations for achieving a balance between the water availability and demand in future. They also anticipate further disputes in the Cauvery as well as in other basins in India, where state politicians might be interested in following the judicial pathway to achieve their water-related ambitions; and we share these concerns.

A major question is what action will follow the SC decision, and we see three possible scenarios. A business-as-usual pathway would follow strictly the SC mandate of proceeding “in six weeks” with revised allocation, water use, and improved management. However, water management changes are usually much slower, and given the significant gaps in data, metering, water rights allocation and their enforcement, it can be anticipated that changes will be slow and partial only. Such an attempt will rely on blaming others (non-cooperation of other basin states) or climate change for negative impacts and will likely lead the regions to new disputes and complaints, and increased water-related problems. For several years now, “water crisis” is among the top five issues in the World Economic Forum’s list of Global Risks and the Cauvery river basin appears to be one region facing such issues. Nevertheless, water managers and political commentators are highly sceptical on the validity of the SC decision, as Article 262(2) of the Indian Constitution excludes the Supreme Court or any other court from hearing or deciding on any appeals against the specific Water Dispute Tribunals’ decisions.

A second pathway is coordinated action for improved water management. This will require political will for negotiation and better governance of inter-state water sharing, as well as substantial investments in Information, Institutions and Infrastructure, and thus is much costlier on the shorter run. However, we firmly believe that it’s a better option for facing ongoing water challenges and driving sustainable growth.

Regarding Information, the Indian Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR, RD & GR) has already started assessing water availability and use with the help of a “water accounting” framework developed jointly with IHE-Delft, and further information for robust decision-making shall be compiled for the impact of climate change on water resources availability, including inter-annual variability, the interaction between surface water and groundwater, the effects of water quality for the humans, the environment and the economy, and ecological flows (e-flows). Regarding the latter, the 10-14 TMC allocated (10 TMC for environmental purposes and four TMC for natural outlets into the sea) by the SC represent less than 2% of the river flow. However, deciding on water allocation for e-flows is not amenable to simple formulations and is much more complex. It requires formulation of a sound scientific methodology as per the hydro-environmental regime of the river and its ecology. Such knowledge will facilitate understanding of the social, environmental and economic consequences of water allocation decisions, and ease possible negotiations.

The institutional set-up needs to undergo a fundamental change to facilitate trust-building and negotiation of complex deals. Comparing globally, India is severely lagging in setting up regimes for water rights, water allocation and water pricing, aimed at better demand management and economically efficient use of water. Lessons can be learned from the OECD-supported activities in Brazil, the ongoing UK license review or the European Water Framework Directive implementation. A mid-term focused development of River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) would bring actors together to jointly address water management challenges. Incipient activities have already started in India – with World Bank funding under the National Hydrology Programme– to start such planning efforts for the Godavari, Krishna and Mahanadi river basins, and with the India-EU Water Partnership for the Tapi river basin.

Infrastructure – ideally based on such Plans – is the third and fundamental pillar for assuring change on the ground. These shall target at reduction of water leakages (e.g. in urban water supply system of Bangalore, a major claimant for Cauvery water allocated to Karnataka), improving water use efficiency in irrigation not only at the plot level, but also at the command area and basin levels (though it will be a major challenge as paddy is the major crop in the basin), and urban and industrial wastewater treatment, to improve water quality and to augment effective water availability for meeting various competitive water needs.

A third pathway, which is on the political agenda for long, is to supply water to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu from other basins, through inter-basin water transfers (IBWTs). Such cost-intensive solutions, involving large-scale water infrastructure, are in place in many water-scarce regions in the world, but disputes on inter-basin water transfers do increase similar to disputes within the basins, and such disputes would involve even more states. But even if Karnataka and Tamil Nadu wish to choose this pathway, the regions shall also improve their domestic water management (leakage reduction, water use efficiency, water quality, data and governance), for them to be able to argue with “legitimate” water requests in the case litigations start on water distribution by IBWTs.

We encourage politicians, managers and stakeholders to explore the second pathway of improved water management, but are aware that solutions will not be in place immediately. Water management is usually tradition-based and reluctant to innovation. Even in the European Union, a region which is often looked at to learn lessons for better water management, water management changes have already taken place over the past 18 years, but major steps to achieve the set targets are still missing. In any case, we look forward to action being taken; the count-down for the next Cauvery water allocation review has already started!

(We would like to thank Dr M Dinesh Kumar and Dr Nuria Hernandez-Mora for reviewing the article and providing their valuable inputs)

Guido Schmidt is a Policy Expert with Fresh-Thoughts Consulting, Austria. Nitin Bassi is a Senior Researcher with Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy and based at their Liaison Office in New Delhi. Email: [email protected] and [email protected]