Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal

Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal

The Krishna River is the second biggest river in peninsular India. It originates near Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra from the statue of a cow in a temple. It then runs for a distance of 303 km in Maharashtra, 480 km through the breadth of North Karnataka and the rest of its 1300 km journey in Andhra Pradesh before it empties into the Bay of Bengal.

The river basin is 257,000 km², and the States of Maharastra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh contributes 68,800 km² (26.8%), 1,12,600 sq.k.m. (43.8%) and 75,600 km² (29.4%) respectively.

Due to the inter state nature of the river and the multiple parties concerned, disputes arose between the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh over sharing of the waters. The Government of India constituted the Krishna Waters Disputes Tribunal in 1969 under the Inter State Water Disputes Act of 1956. This was headed by R. S Bachawat a former judge of the Supreme Court.

The Bachawat commission went over the matter in detail and gave its final award in 1973. While the Tribunal had in its earlier report detailed two schemes, Scheme A and Scheme B, the final award only included Scheme A and Scheme B was left out. Scheme A pertained to the division of the available waters based on 75% dependability, while Scheme B recommended ways to share the surplus waters.

The government took another three years to publish the award in its Extraordinary Gazette dated 31 May 1976. With that the final award (Scheme A) of the KWDT became binding on the three states.

The KWDT in its award outlined the exact share of each state. The award contended based on 75% dependability that the total quantum of water available for distribution was 2060TMC. This was divided between the three states in the following manner.

In addition to the above, the states were allowed to use regeneration/return flows to the extent of 25, 34 and 11 TMC respectively. Further, the Tribunal has allowed the States to utilise their allocated share of water for any project as per their plans. As per clauses V & VII of final order of KWDT-1, a state can fully use its allocated water in any water year (in case of deficit water year also) by utilising the carry over storage facility. A state can create carryover storage during the years when water yield in the river is in excess of 2130 TMC to use in the water year when water yield in the river is less than 2130 TMC. Thus KWDT-1 allocated water use from the river up to 2130 TMC at 100% success rate out of average yield in the river and not subject to water availability in a 75% dependable year. The average yield in the river is assessed as 2578 TMC by recent KWDT-2.

Including regeneration, the total water available to Karnataka for utilisation is 734 TMC. Out of this, Upper Krishna Project has been allotted with 173 TMC.