Karnataka begins release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu to comply with CWRC directive

MANDYA: Complying with the Cauvery Water Regulation Commission (CWRC) directive, the Karnataka government began releasing water to Tamil Nadu from its reservoirs on Thursday.

After declaring that no water will be released further, the government started releasing 2,696 cusecs of water from the KRS dam despite the ongoing protests and the Karnataka bandh planned on September 29 by various pro-Kannada groups.

Currently, there is only 20 tmcft of water stored in the KRS dam of which 5 tmcft is dead storage. Daily release of 3,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu for the next 18 days will mean that the water storage will drop by another 5 tmcft, leaving only 10 tmcft for the state’s needs.

The flow of water has increased at Balamuri, a popular picnic spot near Mysuru.

On Thursday, the water level was 99.28 ft against a maximum level of 124.80 ft. The storage was 20.754 tmcft against a maximum of 49.452 tmcft. The outflow was 2.696 cusecs while the inflow was 5183 cusecs.

With water being released to Tamil Nadu, the water which was being released to the canals since September 11 has been stopped. Meanwhile, about 2,000 cusecs of water is also being released from the Kabini dam.