The Centre on Friday notified the formation of the Cauvery Water Management Authority in compliance with a Supreme Court order on a water dispute involving Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
The Centre’s move to notify the board comes weeks after the Supreme Court accepted the Centre’s draft scheme on sharing of the Cauvery’s water. The court had asked the government to notify it in the official gazette before the onset of monsoon. The Centre submitted the draft on May 14 after several delays that prompted the court to issue warnings. In February, the court asked the Centre to set up the management board by March 29, and later extended the deadline to May 3.
The Centre will appoint a senior and eminent engineer with experience in water resource management to head the board, which will also have two full-time members appointed by the Centre, and two part-time members nominated by the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture. The Centre will also appoint the board’s secretary, who has to be an engineer, for a three-year term. The four states will nominate one representative each. They will be additional part-time members of the committee.
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