Union Government notified Cauvery Water Scheme, 2013

The Union government notified Cauvery Water (Implementation of the Order of 2007) Scheme, 2013 to implement the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT), 2007. Under the scheme, a supervisory committee will be formed as notified by the ministry of Water Resources. The committee will be headed by the Water Resources Secretary, while Chief Secretaries of the Cauvery basin States/Union Territory (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala) will be the members. The Central Water Commission (CWC) chairman will also be a member and the CWC's chief engineer will be the Member-Secretary. The headquarters of the committee will be in New Delhi.

The scheme will be in place till the Cauvery Management Board is constituted as mentioned in the award. The chairman of the Committee may apply to the Supreme Court for appropriate directions with notices to other States if he thinks it is necessary. As per the notification of the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT), 2007 in February 2013, the Cauvery River Authority (CRA), chaired by the Prime Minister, and the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC), headed by the Water Resources Secretary are no longer functioning.

Both committees were formed as per the directives of the Supreme Court to monitor the implementation of the interim orders of the tribunal.

Supreme Court of India in its interim order on 10 May 2013 had directed the union government to constitute a supervisory committee for implementation of the final order of the CWDT dated 5 February 5, 2007 as notified on 19 February 2013.

The Tribunal which included Chairman Justice N.P. Singh and members N.S. Rao and Sudhir Narain was set up in 1990. It had determined the total availability of water in the Cauvery basin at 740 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet at the Lower Coleroon Anicut site in a Unanimous award in February 2007. In the final order the Tribunal gave Tamil Nadu 419 TMC of water (as against the demand of 562 TMC); Karnataka 270 TMC (as against its demand of 465 TMC); Kerala 30 TMC and Puducherry 7 TMC.  It had reserved 10 TMC for environmental protection.