Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today (Jun 5, 2005) demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately convene a meeting of the Cauvery River Authority to discuss the overall situation of the implementation of the interim orders of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal.

In a letter to Singh, she said it was also necessary to finalise the distress sharing formula at the meeting.

"If the formula is finalised, it will enable Tamil Nadu to get at least the benefit of releases as per the formula if a distress situation arises during the current irrigation year. I look forward to your immediate positive response in this matter," she said.

Jayalalithaa, in her letter, said it was a well known fact that ever since the tribunal gave its interim order, directing release of 205 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu every year, Karnataka "had not been forthcoming" to implement it.

She said that water could not be released from Mettur Reservoir for the short term Kuruvai crop cultivation on the scheduled date of June 12 in the past two consecutive years.

"During the last two irrigation years, we were not even able to supply adequate quantity of water for the long term Samba crop, because of the Karnataka Government not releasing water in terms of interim orders of the tribunal," she said.

This year also, Tamil Nadu would not be in a position to throw open the dam on the scheduled date as the available utilisable storage as on June 4 was only about 4.5 tmc ft, Jayalalithaa said.

"The distress sharing formula for adoption in sub-normal years, mooted as early as in October 2001, in the third meeting of the Cauvery River Authority, was yet to be finalised and approved," she said.

A formula, which was evolved by the Central Water Commission, had been discussed by the Cauvery Monitoring Committee. After detailed discussion in its 20th meeting held on Jan 19, 2004, the committee had decided to place the formula before the CRA for a final decision, Jayalalithaa said.