Kaveri River water dispute
The sharing of waters of the Kaveri river has been the source of conflict between the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The 802 km (498 mi)–long Kaveri river originates at Talakaveri in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, and flows for about 320 km (200 mi) before entering Tamil Nadu. It flows further eastward in Tamil Nadu for 416 km (258 mi) before flowing into the Bay of Bengal near Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu. The basin area consists of 44,000 km2 in Tamil Nadu and 32,000 km2 in Karnataka.
The conflict stems from the agreements made in 1892 and 1924 between the Kingdom of Mysore and the Madras Presidency during the British Raj. After the Indian Independence in 1947, the states were re-organised, with the erstwhile Madras Presidency being split between various states, majorly Tamil Nadu and Andhra, and parts of the Kaveri basin became part of Kerala and Puducherry. After the expiry of the 1924 agreement in 1974, Karnataka demanded its due share of water from the river stating that the pre-Independence agreements are invalid and favored the Madras Presidency due to its expanse at the time, and demanded a renegotiated settlement. However, Tamil Nadu argued that it has about 3 million acres of land under cultivation, which is heavily dependent on the river water, and any change in the existing water sharing pattern would adversely affect the livelihood of millions of farmers in the state.
Two decades of negotiations between the parties yielded no result. In 1990, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to constitute the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal. The tribunal gave an interim award in June 1991 that was based on its 10-year calculation of average inflow of water into Tamil Nadu, and though deemed unfair by Karnataka, it adhered to it as the Supreme Court upheld the same. The tribunal gave its final allocation on 5 February 2007, which was only announced by the Indian government on 20 February 2013. The final award made an annual allocation of 419 tmcft to Tamil Nadu, 270 tmcft to Karnataka, 30 tmcft to Kerala, and 7 tmcft to Puducherry. Karnataka was also specified to release a certain amount of water as designated every month.
In 2013, the Supreme Court issued a direction to the union government to establish an supervisory committee to implement the order. Following further litigation, on 16 February 2018, the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict, allocating 404.25 tmcft to Tamil Nadu and 284.75 tmcft to Karnataka, while the allocations for the others remained the same. As per the orders, the Cauvery Water Management Authority was created by the union government on 1 June 2018, and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee was created three weeks later. The dispute, however, did not end there, and further review petitions and request for clarifications have been filed with the committee and the courts. Over the years, the dispute has also resulted in widespread protests, demonstrations, and riots in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.