At 8 am, the discharge was stepped up from 1,500 to 10,000 cusecs to help the delta farmers, who have been demanding water for at least three more wettings, to secure a decent samba harvest.

The dam has 19.98 tmcft (93.4 tmcft) as on date, while the inflow was an abysmal 59 cusecs. If sources in the state WRD were to be believed, the volume of discharge would be maintained at 10,000 cusecs for less than a week and reduced to 2,500 cusecs from thereon before the scheduled closure on January 28. Thereafter, water would be released only for drinking purpose. Given the existing discharge volume and storage capacity, the dam could reach dead storage level long before the ensuing summer. It could leave the delta districts parched ahead of the next crop season which begins in June. Unless the Cauvery catchments receive bountiful rain in summer, the situation could leave the farmers in dire straits.

Meanwhile in Thanjavur, the Cauvery Rights Retrieval Committee (CRRC), an umbrella body of farmers associations and political parties, demanded to transfer the cases pertaining to Cauvery water dispute to a seven-judge Constitution Bench following the recent open revolt by four senior judges of the Supreme Court against the CJI.

Coordinator of the CRRC, P Maniyarasan, said the three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Deepak Misra, has reserved its judgment.

He claimed that the bench did not take any action against the Karnataka Government which failed to obey its orders to release water to Tamil Nadu. The CRRC convener claimed that the case had been ‘proceeding’ as per the direction of the Karnataka state counsel Fali S Nariman. He further pointed out the dissenting judges in their letter released to the media had said, there have been instances where cases having far reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justice selectively to the benches “of their preference” without any rational basis.

 “Hence, we will file a petition in the apex court to shift the Cauvery case to the seven-judge Constitution bench and urge the Tamil Nadu government also to file a petition to this effect”, Maniyarasan said.