Cauvery Water Management Authority is meeting on Wednesday amid a growing deficit in water realisation by Tamil Nadu

Amid a growing deficit in the realisation of Cauvery water by Tamil Nadu, the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) is holding its meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday (July 22, 2026).

A week ago, the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) heard the arguments of both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and decided to wait until its next meeting on July 28 to review the situation.

As of now, the realisation at Biligundulu, on the inter-State point, was about 3.44 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft), about 21 tmc ft short for the elapsed period (June 1 to July 19).

An expert in Chennai says that since June 1 (the beginning of the current water year), four reservoirs of the Cauvery basin have received around 30 tmc ft, “whereas we have not even received four tmc ft”. According to a report of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, the cumulative flow into the four reservoirs, as on Monday, was 31.61 tmc ft, while the outflow was 5.26 tmc ft. The combined storage of the four reservoirs was 59 tmc ft against the total capacity of 114.57 tmc ft. 

In the morning, the water level at the Mettur dam, the lifeline of the Cauvery delta, stood at 75.14 ft (the full level is 120 ft), with the storage being around 37.3 tmc ft (capacity: 93.47 tmc ft).

Farmers let down: Palaniswami

Meanwhile, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami accused Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay of having “let down” the farmers of the delta and Tamil Nadu people by not getting in touch with his Karnataka counterpart D.K. Shivakumar to secure the State’s share of water. He also came down on Mr. Shivakumar for not respecting the Supreme Court.

The farmers in the Cauvery delta were feeling “agitated” in view of water not having been released for irrigation and “lakhs of agricultural workers having been rendered jobless”, Mr. Palaniswami said, calling upon the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam-led government to exert “enormous pressure” on Karnataka to release Tamil Nadu’s full share of the Cauvery water immediately.