The Mekedatu dam project is again in the limelight of the Supreme Court on November 13, 2025, which has given its nod for consideration of the detailed project report (DPR) by the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC).
The idea of the project proponent – the Karnataka government – is to impound 67.16 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water by building a ₹ 9,000 crore buffer tank at Mekedat (which means ‘goat’s leap’ in Kannada), about 100 km from Bengaluru. The project will also have a 400 MW (megawatt) hydro component. In a 2018 Supreme Court judgment in the Cauvery dispute, Karnataka was sanctioned an additional 4.75 TMC.
Arguments
In Karnataka’s case before the court, what the state intended to do was “only use the water allotted to it as per the award of the CWDT (Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal), as amended by this court. The upper riparian state also argued that it was “entirely within its right” to use the water allotted to it in the best possible way.” Even after the Mekedatu Dam was constructed, the uncontrolled flow of water towards Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry would not be affected.
Arguing that Karnataka has no right to build a dam in Mekedat, Tamil Nadu has said that if the proposed dam is allowed, its right to “uncontrolled flow of water would be adversely affected”. By building the dam, “Karnataka is in fact doing something that will amount to modifying the award passed by the CWDT as modified by this court,” according to the lower riparian state.
After hearing both sides, the Supreme Court clarified that Karnataka will be required to release water as per CWMA guidelines, which will be metered by CWC at Biligundul metering point. It also stated that “each state is free to use the water allocated to its quota in a manner it deems to be in the best interest of the state. No other state has the right to interfere with the management and use decisions of the water allocated to a particular state unless by this act the water allocated to that state is reduced.”
“Revised” DPR
It is against this background that the Karnataka government has decided to give the project a new lease of life by planning to submit a ‘revised’ DPR to the central authorities soon. Looking back at the history of the Cauvery dispute, the Mekedatu project has come up several times during inter-state negotiations as well as talks between all the basin states of the Cauvery, which include Kerala and Puducherry.
A perusal of the materials available in the Hindu Archives over the past 75 years reveals how the project was vividly debated. As early as February 1950, this newspaper reported that the two governments had come to an agreement and Karnataka, then known as Mysore, as Tamil Nadu was then called Madras, had “secured” the latter’s agreement to produce power, and the former had received a revised draft agreement from the latter. In 1950, the project, initially envisaged to produce 15 MW and eventually 35-40 MW, was estimated to cost ₹5 crore, of which the initial phase alone would cost ₹3.5 crore.
Kamaraj period
Detailed surveys were carried out between 1962 and 1964 for setting up two dams and two power houses near Hogenakkal at a total cost of ₹80 million, which could generate 800 MW of power. The scheme involved the construction of a 470 feet high dam and a large power station at Rasimanal, 15 km upstream (also in Tamil Nadu).
S. Nijalingappa (left) and K. Kamaraj (right) in 1967 | Photo Credit: Hindu Archives
Speaking of investigative work, the former chief engineer of the now defunct Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, R. Sengottaiyan, who was in charge of hydro projects, recalled to this correspondent in the 1990s that in February 1963, the Chief Ministers of the two states, K. Kamaraj and S. Nijalingappa, planned to visit the site of the proposed Haogenakkal hydroelectric dam. then he laid However, the visit was postponed at the last minute and never took place, the former engineer recounted.
Committee
When the irrigation ministers of the two states – HM Chennabasappa and PU Shanmugam – met on June 5, 1974 at the picturesque Hogenakkal, an agreement was reached that officials of the two states would independently explore and also hold mutual consultations to conduct detailed feasibility studies of power projects, according to a report published the next day in The Hindu.
PU Shanmugam (left) and HM Chennabasappa (right) | Photo Credit: Hindu Archives
In November 1980, then Karnataka Chief Minister R. Gundu Rao said during a press conference that his government had set up a nine-member committee to prepare a feasibility report on the Mekedatu project, which envisages a power generation of about 1,000 MW, this newspaper reported on November 12, 1980.
A year later, he claimed that an expert panel had concluded that the Mekadatu hydropower project was more suitable for construction than the Hogenakkal project proposed by Tamil Nadu. However, in February 1987, the then Industries and Power Minister JH Patel sounded conciliatory towards Tamil Nadu when he said that his state had proposed to both the Center and Tamil Nadu that the Mekedatu and Hogenakkal projects be taken up as joint projects without the Cauvery water dispute, but no response was received from the two governments. Patel, who was a minister in the Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata government, informed the assembly that his state had sought permission from the Center for Mekedata.
R. Gundu Rao | Photo Credit: Hindu Archives
During August 1996 – January 1997, when the two states held five rounds of negotiations to settle the key Cauvery dispute in the light of the Supreme Court’s proposal, the Mekedatu dam project came up for discussion. According to a report by veteran Karnataka journalist PA Ramaiah, published in this daily on 27 October 1996, the Center was inclined to adopt the Mekedatu project as its own. The cost could be ₹ 2,000 crore and the power — about 950 MW — could be shared by all the four coastal states. Mekedatu was not considered as an alternative to the Hogenakkal Tamil Nadu project.
Karunanidhi period
Two weeks after the fifth and final round of talks held in Chennai on 5 January 1997, then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi told reporters that it was the Mekedatu project that stood in the way of reaching an agreement on Cauvery water sharing between the two states. But his Karnataka counterpart Patel, on his return to Bengaluru on the day he held his state’s talks with Tamil Nadu, told reporters that the reason the talks failed was because Tamil Nadu had asked for a higher percentage of the river’s water share.
JH Patel (left) and M. Karunanidhi (right) in 1997 | Photo Credit: Hindu Archives
When PR Kumaramangalam was the Union Power Minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime in 1998-2000, he sought through the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) to revive the Mekedatu and Hogenakkal project as part of a larger hydroelectric scheme that included power plants at Rasīvasam and Rasīmudram. Aimed at meeting a total demand of 1,150 megawatts (MW), the Cauvery Hydro Power Project (CHPP) envisaged setting up four power plants at Shivasamudram (270 MW) and Mekadatu (400 MW) in Karnataka and Rasimanal (360 MW) and Hogenakkal (120 MW) in Tamil Nadu.
PR Kumaramangalam in 1999 | Photo Credit: Hindu Archives
The discussion, which started in 1999, has continued for years at various levels, with the center acting as a mediator. In August 2008, Union Minister of State for Power and Commerce and Industry Jairam Ramesh, emerging from a nearly hour-long meeting with Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi at the Secretariat, explained the reasons behind the implementation of the “elusive” project. The cost of power through CHPP would be ₹ 2.5 to ₹ 3 per unit when states were buying power at ₹ 7.5 to ₹ 8 per unit, he explained. Finally, the talks broke down after one round in Chennai in August 2009. For one reason or another, the basin states failed to reach any understanding.
Jairam Ramesh in 2008 | Photo credit: Nagara Gopal
In the last 10 years, especially after the final decision issued by the Tribunal in 2007, the approach of the upstream state has been to present the Mekedatu project as a project that seeks to implement the final award, as modified by the Supreme Court in 2018. The purpose of the project is also to address drinking water supply requirements in Bengaluru, which the court acknowledged.
Tamil Nadu’s position was that the authority and the CWC should not entertain its neighbour’s application for Mekedat, given the upper riparian state’s “success” in implementing the tribunal’s decision. But after the Court approves the review of the revised DPR, which Karnataka is expected to submit in the coming months, the battle over Mekedat is likely to intensify further.
