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Karunanidhi, Jaya and allies call on PM to notify Cauvery award

The All India Anna DMK and its allies in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition at the Centre, today appealed to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee to take steps to ensure that the draft schemes on the Cauvery water issue was notified in the government's gazette and placed in Parliament.

In a 12-page letter signed by AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalitha, Pattali Makkal Katch leader S Ramdoss, Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy and Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress president and Union Petroleum Minister Vazhapadi K Ramamurthy, also urged Vajpayee to introduce in the current session, a bill amending Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution providing for complete legal protection to 69 per cent reservation in educational institutions in Tamil Nadu.

They demanded setting up of a committee to study the feasibility of treating all the 19 languages, including Tamil, in Schedule Eight of the Constitution as official languages.

They said these appeals were being raised within the purview of the national agenda which promised evolving a national water policy for effective and prompt settlement of water disputes and their time-bound implementation.

The agenda also promised legal protection to existing percentages of reservation in educational institutions in the state and setting up of a committee to study the feasibility of treating all the 19 languages in Schedule 8 of the Constitution as official languages, they pointed out.

In Madras, simultaneously, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today appealed to Vajpayee to finalise and notify before July 21, the "scheme" for the implementation of the interim award of the Cauvery water disputes tribunal.

In a letter to Vajpayee, he urged the prime minister to instruct the attorney general to inform the Supreme Court that the Centre would comply with its earlier commitment on the issue, when the case come up for hearing on July 21 without seeking further adjournment.

Karunanidhi pointed out that the Centre had, on April 4, 1997, committed before the apex court that it would frame a scheme under the Inter-state Water DISPUTES act and send it to the states within eight weeks before finalising it.

"Even after a lapse of 15 months the scheme is yet to be notified despite my repeated requests in person and through letters to you and to your predecessors. The attorney general had sought adjournment on eight occasions under one pretext or the other," he added.

Karunanidhi said he knew that the issue of notifying the scheme was pending consideration of the cabinet for quite some time, and appealed to Vajpayee to ensure that it was notified.

The chief minister also drew the prime minister's attention to his earlier letter on July 13 last for notifying the scheme under Section 6-A of the Inter-state Water Disputes Act.

UNI

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