Cauvery meeting postponed to Sept 1

NEW DELHI: Apparently anticipating no breakthrough, the Union Water Resources Ministry on Sunday postponed Monday''s Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) meeting to September one.
The meeting, to be attended by chief Secretaries of the riparian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry, was to evolve a "distress formula" in the backdrop of no agreement between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu on the sharing of the river waters.
Sources in the Water Resoures Ministry said that the experts'' group which met on August 18 could not work out a "distress formula" in view of the sharp differences between the two states on measurement of the river waters. While Karnataka insisted on the Biligundlu gauging station as the measuring point, Tamil Nadu stuck to Mettur reservoir as the measuring point.
The experts group, headed by R K Sharma, Commissioner (Projects) in the Water Resources Ministry, was set up on June 9 and was asked to "come out with a suitable formula very soon". The outcome of the group was to be submitted to the CMC for its approval.
Water Resources Secretary A K Goswami had said earlier that CMC meeting on August 25 would hopefully finalise the formula as the group had "succeeded in narrowing" the differences between the two states.