Why in News?
Supreme Court dismissed Tamil Nadu's review petition against the Mekedatu balancing reservoir project on May 24, 2026, upholding its earlier November 2025 order.
What is the Mekedatu Project?
- The Project: A multipurpose balancing reservoir and drinking water project conceptualized by the Government of Karnataka.
- Financial Outlay: Planned with an estimated budget of ₹9,000 crore.
- Exact Location: Located near Kanakapura in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka, roughly 90 km from Bengaluru and 4 km ahead of the Tamil Nadu interstate border.
- Geographical Confluence: Proposed at Mekedatu (meaning “goat’s leap”), a deep gorge situated at the direct confluence of the Cauvery River and its tributary, the Arkavathi River.
Key Technical Features and Objectives
- Drinking Water Supply: Designed to store and supply 4.75 TMC (Thousand Million Cubic feet) of clean drinking water to meet the growing summer shortages in the Bengaluru Metropolitan region.
- Power Generation: Includes the construction of an underground powerhouse to generate 400 MW of renewable hydroelectric power.
- Dam Specifications: Features a 99-metre-high and 735-metre-long concrete gravity dam capable of impounding 67.16 TMC of water.
- Legal Backing (Karnataka's Claim): Karnataka maintains that the project utilizes the specific water quota already allocated to it by the Supreme Court’s definitive 2018 Cauvery water judgment.
Why is Tamil Nadu Opposing the Project?
- Riparian Concerns: Tamil Nadu, being the lower riparian state, argues that Mekedatu represents the last free-flowing point from which Cauvery water streams unrestricted into its territory.
- Fear of Water Deficit: The state fears that a massive upstream balancing reservoir will allow Karnataka to control and alter natural river flow patterns, jeopardizing water releases during critical dry seasons.
- Agricultural Impact: Reduced or delayed water flows would severely hit irrigation and crop security in Tamil Nadu's highly fertile delta regions.
- Legal Violations: Tamil Nadu contends that creating new storage facilities violates the final awards of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) and Supreme Court mandates, which state no upper riparian state can build structural changes without downstream consent.
Environmental Concerns
- Submergence Scale: The reservoir is projected to submerge approximately 5,173 hectares of land.
- Forest Degradation: Out of the total submerged area, nearly 4,800 to 4,996 hectares consist of crucial forest and wildlife land within the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Pending Clearances: Due to the severe impact on wildlife habitats, the project still awaits final statutory clearances from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).
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