Cauvery: M.B. Patil accuses Centre of cheating the people of Karnataka

Accusing the Union government of cheating the people of Karnataka by submitting the draft Cauvery management scheme in the Supreme Court, Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil said that the BJP government has washed away all the efforts made by Karnataka to protect the interests of the people of the Cauvery basin.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, he said that for years, Karnataka had been fighting to ensure that the Cauvery Management Board was not constituted as it would be harmful to the State’s interest. “Even the Supreme Court had upheld our demand by admitting that there is no need to constitute the board. The court, however, left the decision to the discretion of the Union government to take a final call,” Mr. Patil said. Karnataka had been demanding implementation of the Distress Formula, in which water to Tamil Nadu could be shared by Karnataka, based on the availability in the reservoirs of the Cauvery basin. “We were expecting the Centre to use its discretion to implement the Distress Formula under Distress Redressal Mechanism, but going against the interests of Karnataka, it has decided to constitute the Cauvery Management Scheme,” he said.