The Chief Minister flayed the central government for not convening the Cauvery River Authority meeting as the Karnataka government did not heed the orders of the Cauvery water tribunal to share waters with Tamilnadu, despite constant pleas from her.

She also pledged that her government would take all possible steps to fetch Tamilnadu its legitimate share of water from Cauvery.

In a strongly worded statement released today, Ms Jayalalithaa said that following reports in some magazines that the area of cultivation for Kuruvai cultivation had been reduced and this would drastically reduce production, she felt it was her responsibility to remove unnecessary fears from the minds of the people by briefing them on the true situation.

Ms Jaylalithaa pointed out that normally the Kuruvai cultivation is taken up in 47.5 acres of land in Tamilnadu every year. Out of this  40 percent is taken up in the Cauvery Delta region.

In June and July, Kuruvai paddy was raised on 3.20 lakh acres, samba crops in the months of August and September on 11.50 acres of land and Thaladi crops on 3 lakh acres of land during the months of September and October.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that the Kuruvai cultivation was dependant on water released from the Mettur dam. Taking this into consideration the Cauvery Tribunal had given an interim order in 1991 that during the south west monsoon period Karnataka must release water to Mettur.

As per the order, 10.1 TMC feet of water had to be released in June, 42.76 tmc feet in July, 54.72 tmc feet in August and 29.36 tmc feet in September.

A total of 137 tmc feet of water ought to have been shared with Tamilnadu from June to September, she pointed out.

Later in 2007, based on the final award of the Cauvery River Water Disputes Tribunal , out of the 740 tmc feet of water received in the Cauvery bed, 429 tmc feet belonged to Tamilnadu. According to the orders, a total of 134 tmc feet of water should be shared with Tamilnadu, from June to September.

The break up being  10 tmc feet in June, 34 TMC feet in July, 50 TMC feet in August and 40 TMC feet in September.

According to the final directive of the Cauvery Water tribunal, Karnataka would not be able to utilise the water in their dams for summer irrigation.

She flayed the Centre for not notifying the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in the government gazette despite several pleas from her.

Since Tamil Nadu had not got its due share of water because of Karnataka utilising the water for summer irrigation, the state government had moved the Supreme Court against this on March 21st this year seeking to restrain Karnataka from using water above 103.24 tmc feet.

She also pointed out that petition was still pending in the Supreme Court.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that another interim petition was filed in the Supreme Court on the 17th of April 2012 seeking to include the ruling of the Cauvery tribunal in the Central gazette.

She also recalled her letter to the prime minister dated 18th of May 2012, urging him to convene the Cauvery River Water Authority meeting.

But the Centre had not yet heeded to the request, she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that as the centre was besieged with internal squabblings created by its alliance partners, it appeared that it had no time to look into issues  concerning the people.

As a result of this, the UPA government at the Centre was hit by policy paralysis resulting in it not even being able to look at livelihood issues like the cauvery river water row, she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that in the backdrop of Southwest monsoon not favoring this year and also Karnataka not releasing its quota of water to Tamilnadu, the AIADMK government had taken steps to ensure the kuruvai cultivation to some extent.

She said that she had held a review meeting on the 28th of May 2012. Following this she had held another meeting on the 15th of June 2012 to review the situation on paddy irrigation and water scarcity.

Ms Jayallaithaa said that according to the situation then, the Mettur dam had just 41.11tmc feet of water. So there was no possibility of releasing the water for irrigation.

Considering the fact that there were 80 thousand pump sets in the Cauvery delta area and to run them considerable units of electricity was required, which in turn would enable cultivation to an extent, Ms Jayalalithaa ordered 3 phase power supply for 12 hours  to farmers from the 17th of June 2012.

To compensate this additional power supply, she had allocated the TNEB a sum of 125 crore rupees.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that as an off shoot of this, Kuruvai cultivation was taken up on 87 thousand acres of land in the Delta districts till the 19th of July.

Over the next 10 days, by taking up Kuruvai cultivation on the additional 50 thousand acres of land, a total of 1.37 lakh acres of land would be cultivated this year.

The Chief Minister pointed out that with the help of pump sets only one lakh acre could be cultivated. But the initiative of the Tamilnadu government to supply 12 hours of power to farmers had enabled the farmers to cultivate an additional 37 thousand acres of land.

Ms Jayalalithaa added that the agriculture department has been continuously monitoring the water scarcity situation.

Also it has been providing the farmers with the latest technological data. Further, by implementing the Rice Intensification system,steps were taken to efficiently make use of the water.

As an alternative measure, in Tanjavore district with the assistance of the paddy sowing machine, paddy was sown directly on 200 acres of land.

This machine had also the facility to spray fertilizers simultaneously.

Steps were also taken to make use of this machine in 5 wards to cultivate 250 acres of land.

This alternative method to do away with water scarcity was never taken up during the Kuruvai season, she said.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that advices were given to farmers to use this alternative method to cultivate other food grains and pulse varieties.

Ms Jayalalithaa also added that measures would be taken up by the agriculture department for direct sowing of the seeds in various places where it was possible.

Arrangements were also being made to stock high quality seeds, fertilizers and preservative chemicals to protect seeds.

Steps were being taken through the agricultural engineering department to procure the necessary equipments for cultivation.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that though Tamilnadu was facing water scarcity, the state had so far cultivated paddy in 3 acres of land. By the end of July 2012, a further 1 lakh 52 thousand acres would be cultivated.

Also the target for khar, kuruvai and swarnavari pattu cultivation was 6 lakh 50 thousand acres and so far 4 lakh 52 thousand acres had been cultivated.

Ms Jayalalithaa said that though the Karnataka government did not share even a drop of water with Tamilnadu, the government under her leadership had taken all possible steps to avert loss to farmers in the Kuruvai cultivation.

Still, the Karnataka government has to immediately release water to Tamilnadu.

The Tamilnadu government had filed a petition with the Supreme court on the 21st of July 2012 to direct the State of Karnataka to release water from its reservoirs during the current year, which is a distress year, without fully impounding all the flows in its reservoirs, on a pro rata basis as per the clarificatory order of the tribunal.

The petition had also requested the apex court to direct the Cauvery Monitoring Committee to place before the Cauvery River Authority the distress sharing formula as evolved, she mentioned.

Ms Jayalalithaa assured that the AIADMK government would take all proactive steps to get the state's due share of water from Karnataka and implement necessary measures to increase agricultural production.