After a five-hour discussion at the committee which asked Karnataka to make good the deficit of three tmc by September 30 and another six tmc by October in addition to the mandatory releases for the two months, the State said that it was in no position to abide by the recommendation. The proposal could be considered only after a fortnight, it said.

Since the proposal of the committee is only recommendatory in nature, the matter will now have to go to the CRA headed by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee with the chief ministers of the two States and Kerala and Pondicherry as its members.

There was no indication yet as to when the CRA would meet but since the committee has asked Karnataka to release three tmc of water by the month-end, itsmeeting would have to be convened before September 30.

It was only in August last year that the four States agreed to the setting up of the CRA which the Vajpayee government hailed as a great achievement. It had sought to give the impression that the bitter inter-State water row had been resolved permanently.

As if Tamil Nadu had anticipated today's turn of events, it had already decided that a ministerial team should meet Vajpayee tomorrow to ensure that Karnataka complied with the interim order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal. As per this order, Karnataka has to release 205 tmc of water to Tamil Nadu in a year.

If Karnataka Chief Secretary B K Bhattacharya put his State's reservations on record at the meeting saying that a decision should be taken only after a fortnight, State Irrigation Minister K N Nage Gowda rejected the proposal outright saying it was `one-sided.'

Gowda said in Bangalore that the monitoring committee's recommendation ran contrary to the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunalorder which did not provide for making good the deficit datewise and monthwise. The deficit could only be good at the end of the season.

`In view of this, there is no question of releasing even a drop of water,' he declared.

Karnataka's contention at the meeting of the monitoring committee attended by the chief secretaries of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry and chaired by Union Water Resources Secretary Z Hasan was that the recommendation for the release of water was based on the assumptions about further behaviour of the monsoon/inflows. The decision would have to be taken as the circumstances develop.

In other words, Karnataka made it clear that water could be released out of its reservoirs only if the catchment areas in the State received sufficient rainfall in the next fortnight. As of now, there was a 12 per cent deficit in the rainfall in about 42 taluks which form part of the catchment area.

`If the situation does not improve in the next fortnight we may have to approach the tribunal toapply the distress formula for releases in which case our commitment will come down,' Bhattacharya told The Indian Express.

Besides making good the total deficit of nine tmc for September and October, the monitoring committee also wanted Karnataka to make good the `remaining deficit' during November and December. But it did not define the quantum of this `remaining deficit,' another critical area for conflict between the two States.

If Tamil Nadu argued that Karnataka had to make good a shortfall of 32 tmc as of today, the latter insisted that the deficit was only 20 tmc. The genesis of this controversy lies in the fact that while Tamil Nadu goes by the measurement of flows into Mettur reservoir, Karnataka recognises the flows at Biligundlu where the Central Water Commission operates a gauging station.

It is not clear whether the committee while setting out the releases to be made by Karnataka went by the measurement of flows at Mettur in Tamil Nadu or Biligundlu.