Inter-State Water Disputes in India – UPSC

• Inter-state river water disputes are quarrels between States over the use, distribution or control of a river that crosses their boundaries. They rank among the most contested questions in Indian federalism.
• India holds about 18% of the world’s population and 2.4% of its land, but only about 4% of its renewable water, and that water is unevenly spread in space and season.
  • Almost every major river is shared by two or more States.
  • Demand keeps climbing with population, farming, towns and factories, while the supply stays about the same. Claims on a river therefore collide, and an uneven share can turn into open conflict.
• Nine Water Disputes Tribunals have been constituted since 1969. The Cauvery and the Satluj–Yamuna Link are the best known cases, and delay has dogged most tribunals.

The Rivers and the Disputes

Rivers at the Centre of Disputes

Major Inter-State River Disputes

• Smaller or older disputes show how widely the problem runs:

• The Ravi–Beas question also touches Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi, which hold or claim shares. Disputes across India’s borders follow a separate track of treaties with neighbouring countries.
• Most disputes are first taken up through negotiation among basin States, with the Union helping. Many have ended this way, on the widely accepted principle of equitable apportionment, and a tribunal is the fallback.

Constitution and Law

Water in the Constitution

• Water is a State subject under Entry 17 of the State List, so States may legislate on it. The entry takes in water supply, irrigation, canals, drainage, embankments, water storage and water power.
  • It is expressly subject to Entry 56 of the Union List.
• Entry 56 of the Union List empowers the Union to regulate and develop inter-state rivers and river valleys, to the extent Parliament declares this expedient in the public interest.
• Article 262 deals with disputes over waters:
  • Parliament may by law provide for adjudication of any dispute or complaint on the use, distribution or control of the waters of an inter-State river or river valley.
  • Parliament may also provide that neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall have jurisdiction over such a dispute.

The Two Acts of 1956

• The Inter-State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act was first titled the Inter-State Water Disputes Act and took its present name with the 2002 amendment.
• How it works:
  • A State Government asks the Union for a tribunal under Section 3.
  • The Union first tries to settle the matter by consultation among the aggrieved States.
  • If it judges that negotiation cannot settle the dispute, it constitutes a tribunal.
• Composition: the Central Government constitutes the tribunal. The Chief Justice of India nominates a chairman and two members, from among sitting judges of the Supreme Court or a High Court. Assessors may assist it.
• Courts: Section 11 shuts out all courts, including the Supreme Court, from any dispute that may be referred to a tribunal.
  • The Court does not question the award or formula itself, but it can examine how a tribunal has worked.
  • In practice, States still reach the Court through Article 136 (Special Leave Petition), or through Article 32 by linking the issue to Article 21 (Right to Life). The 2018 Cauvery judgment, which modified an award, came on such appeals.
  • Private persons can approach the Court under Article 21.

The 2002 Amendment

• Delay in setting up tribunals, in deciding, and in carrying out awards led the Sarkaria Commission on Centre–State relations to recommend changes, and Parliament acted in 2002.

• The award is final and stands beyond ordinary court jurisdiction, subject to the Article 136 and Article 21 routes above.

Bills for a Single Permanent Tribunal

• Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017, introduced in the Lok Sabha on 14 March 2017, was meant to end the time lost in setting up a separate tribunal for each dispute.
  • Standalone tribunal: a permanent establishment, with permanent office space and infrastructure, sitting in benches. The Chairperson would assign each dispute to a bench.
  • Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC): set up by the Union to settle a dispute amicably within at most one year and six months. What it cannot settle goes to the tribunal.
  • Decision: final and binding on the parties, and the requirement of publication in the official gazette would go.
  • Data: a transparent national collection system for each river basin, with a single agency keeping the data bank.
  • The Bill went to the Standing Committee on Water Resources, and the Ministry then prepared a draft Cabinet note for official amendments.
• The 2019 Bill replaced it. Introduced on 25 July 2019, it passed the Lok Sabha on 31 July 2019.
  • All existing tribunals would be dissolved and their pending disputes transferred.
  • The decision would come within two years, extendable by one.
• Current position: disputes are still handled tribunal by tribunal under the 1956 Act. In June 2026 the Union extended two existing tribunals, and in February 2026 the Supreme Court told it to set up yet another.

Tribunals So Far

Nine Tribunals

• By February 2026, nine tribunals had been constituted. Five have adjudicated and been dissolved, and four remain active.

• The first tribunals: the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal of April 1969 involved Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, and the Godavari tribunal was constituted the same month.
  • Justice R. S. Bachawat chaired both. The Krishna tribunal gave its first report in 1973, and its final decision was published in 1976.
• A tenth is due, for the Pennaiyar, under Supreme Court orders of 2026.

Issues with the Tribunals

• Long delays. The clearest example is the Godavari.
  • Complaints from the basin States came between 1962 and 1968. The tribunal followed in April 1969, and its decision and gazette publication came in July 1980.
  • The Cauvery tribunal, constituted in 1990, gave its final award only in 2007.
  • The Ravi and Beas tribunal, from 1986, is still awaiting a further report 40 years on.
• Opaque process. The institutional framework and guidelines for these proceedings, and for securing compliance, lack clarity.
• Finality in doubt. Though an award is final, States return to the Supreme Court through Article 136, or through Article 32 with Article 21.
• Narrow composition. Tribunals consist only of judges, and they are not multidisciplinary, although the questions are hydrological, agronomic and economic.
• No agreed data. With no authoritative water data acceptable to all parties, even a baseline for adjudication is hard to set.
• An adversarial turn. The move from deliberation to contest feeds longer litigation and politicisation of sharing.
• Water in electoral politics. River disputes have become matters of electoral competition inside States.
  • This brings defiance by States, extended litigation and subversion of the mechanism.
  • Punjab’s conduct after the Ravi–Beas report is the usual example: its 2004 Act ended its water agreements, and the Supreme Court later held that Act invalid.
• Too much discretion at too many stages:
  • Partly from procedural complexity, with many stakeholders across governments and agencies.
  • Partly from India’s complicated federal polity and its colonial legacy.

Boards and Management Bodies

• With tribunals slow, the Union has turned to standing bodies, and these have proved controversial because water is a State subject, and a basin body can look like a transfer of control.
• River Boards Act, 1956: still unused.
• Bhakra Beas Management Board: Punjab contested its decision of 23 April 2025 to release 8,500 cusecs to Haryana.
  • On 6 May 2025, the Punjab and Haryana High Court barred Punjab from interfering with the Nangal dam’s operation.
• Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards: created under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. A gazette notification of 15 July 2021 set their jurisdiction over projects.
  • Telangana opposed it. Andhra Pradesh broadly welcomed it, then made its handover conditional on Telangana’s, and both States went to the Supreme Court.
• Cauvery Water Management Authority: created in June 2018 to carry out the Supreme Court’s judgment.

Case Studies

Cauvery

• The Cauvery rises in Karnataka and flows through Tamil Nadu and Puducherry’s Karaikal to the Bay of Bengal. Keralam, with part of the catchment, is also a party.
• Colonial agreements: 1892, between the princely state of Mysore and the Madras Presidency, and 1924, for 50 years, to 1974.
• Road to a tribunal:
  • 1970: Tamil Nadu asked the Union for a tribunal. In the same year the Tamil Nadu farmers’ association filed a civil suit in the Supreme Court.
  • 1986: Tamil Nadu made a formal request again.
  • 2 June 1990: the tribunal was set up on the Supreme Court’s direction.
• Interim order, June 1991: Karnataka was to release enough to ensure 205 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) at Mettur in a water year (1 June to 31 May), with monthly and weekly stipulations.
  • Karnataka answered with an ordinance to nullify the order, which the Supreme Court struck down.
• Final award, 5 February 2007: reached after 16 years of hearings, and challenged by both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in the Supreme Court. It was gazetted on 19 February 2013.
• Non-release in deficit years:
  • 28 September 2012: the Supreme Court censured Karnataka for not following the Prime Minister’s direction, as chair of the Cauvery River Authority, to release 9,000 cusecs.
  • 10 May 2013: the Court had the Union set up a panel to supervise releases. Tamil Nadu then sought damages from Karnataka.
  • September 2016: on Tamil Nadu’s petition, the Court ordered releases. Protests followed in Karnataka, where it was argued that the reservoirs held too little.
• Supreme Court, 16 February 2018: the award merged into this judgment, which ended the litigation over shares.

• Release at the border: Karnataka must deliver 177.25 tmc ft a year at Biligundulu, against 192 tmc ft in the award.
• Machinery: the scheme notified on 1 June 2018 created the Cauvery Water Management Authority and a Regulation Committee. The tribunal was dissolved on 16 July 2018.
• Current quarrel: Karnataka’s Mekedatu balancing reservoir and drinking water project.
  • 13 November 2025: the Supreme Court rejected Tamil Nadu’s application as premature.
  • July 2026: the Jal Shakti Ministry told Parliament that the project report had been returned for revision, so the project has no approval.

Satluj–Yamuna Link and the Ravi–Beas Waters

• Origin: when Haryana was formed in 1966, it claimed a share of what undivided Punjab held in the Ravi and Beas under a 1955 agreement. The parties are Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
• The canal: the Satluj (Sutlej)–Yamuna Link, or SYL, is to carry Haryana’s share across Punjab. It runs 214 km, 122 km in Punjab and 92 km in Haryana.

• Punjab’s case: the tribunal overestimated available water, and the State has none to spare. Haryana’s case: a binding agreement and decree remain unfulfilled, with its own stretch built.
• Since 2016: the Supreme Court has kept both States on status quo and pressed them to talk, with the Centre as mediator.
  • The two Chief Ministers met again in January 2026.
  • On 12 August 2026, the Attorney General told the Court that the two States were moving towards a common understanding.
• The wider north-west: the Ravi, Beas and Satluj are the eastern rivers that India uses exclusively under the Indus Waters Treaty, and Punjab and Haryana also meet at the Bhakra Beas Management Board. The Yamuna’s flow is managed through the Upper Yamuna River Board.

Krishna

• First tribunal: it worked from 2,060 tmc at 75% dependability and shared it among Maharashtra (585), Karnataka (734) and undivided Andhra Pradesh (811), with return flows taking the total to 2,130 tmc.
  • Its decision allowed for review after 31 May 2000.
• Second tribunal: at the States’ request, it was constituted in April 2004.
  • It gave its decision on 30 December 2010 and, after references from the States and the Union, a further report on 29 November 2013.
  • Shares: Maharashtra 666, Karnataka 911 and Andhra Pradesh 1,001 tmc, working also from 65% dependability and the average yield.
  • It allowed Almatti to rise to 524.256 m.
• Why it is not in force: undivided Andhra Pradesh challenged the decision, and a Supreme Court order of 16 September 2011 bars its gazette publication until further orders.
• Telangana as the fourth party: the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 asked the tribunal to divide the undivided share.
  • Further terms of 6 October 2023 confine that work to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
  • Its term had been extended to 31 July 2026, and a further one-year extension was notified on 15 June 2026.

Godavari and Polavaram

• The Godavari award of 1980 rested largely on agreements among the States, and it allowed Polavaram. Bifurcation in 2014 added Telangana as a riparian State.
• Polavaram, a national project, is to reach storage limited to 41.15 m in its first phase by June 2027. Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Telangana raise submergence concerns.
• Polavaram–Nallamala Sagar link: Andhra Pradesh’s plan, first aimed at Banakacherla, would move Godavari flood water towards the Krishna basin. Telangana says it would divert far more than the 80 tmc ft provided for in the project.
  • In January 2026, the Supreme Court called Telangana’s writ petition prima facie not maintainable.
  • On 13 July 2026, the Court declined to hear its later petition until defects were cured.

Narmada

• Award of 7 December 1979: 28 MAF treated as utilisable, shared among Madhya Pradesh (18.25), Gujarat (9), Rajasthan (0.5) and Maharashtra (0.25).
• Sardar Sarovar power goes 57% to Madhya Pradesh, 27% to Maharashtra and 16% to Gujarat.
• The award may be reviewed after 45 years, a point now reached.

Mahadayi

• Request: Goa asked for a tribunal in July 2002, and in June 2003 it said it preferred to negotiate. The tribunal came only in November 2010.
• Core issue: Karnataka’s Kalasa-Banduri works, to divert water to the Malaprabha basin for Belagavi, Dharwad and Gadag.
• Award: decided on 14 August 2018, published on 27 February 2020: Goa 24, Karnataka 13.42 and Maharashtra 1.33 tmc.
  • Diversion by Karnataka is limited to 3.9 tmc, subject to fresh appraisal and clearances. Further references remain before the tribunal.

Mahanadi

• Odisha’s complaint of 19 November 2016 says upstream barrages in Chhattisgarh cut lean-season flow into Hirakud.
• The tribunal was constituted on 12 March 2018 after a Supreme Court direction, and its tenure runs to 13 January 2027. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand are also basin States before it.
• The two States began mediation under the Central Water Commission on 29 July 2026.

Vansadhara

• Issue: Andhra Pradesh’s Neradi barrage, opposed by Odisha.
• Tribunal: constituted in February 2010, with a report on 13 September 2017 and a further report on 21 June 2021. It was dissolved on 9 March 2022.
• Status: the Union notified the further award on 30 March 2026, subject to Odisha’s petitions in the Supreme Court. Water is shared equally, and the barrage is permitted subject to clearances.

Mullaperiyar

• Origin: a 999-year lease of 29 October 1886 between the Maharaja of Travancore and the British Secretary of State for India let the Periyar’s water be turned east. The dam opened in 1895, in present-day Keralam, and is run by Tamil Nadu.
• Issue: Keralam cites safety, and Tamil Nadu wants the water level raised from 136 to 142 feet.
• Court:
  • 27 February 2006: the Supreme Court allowed 142 feet.
  • 2006: Kerala passed a law to cap the level.
  • 7 May 2014: the Court struck the law down and provided for a Supervisory Committee.
  • 8 April 2022: the Court gave the Committee statutory dam safety functions until the National Dam Safety Authority takes over.
  • 6 May 2025: the Court directed both States to act on the Committee’s recommendations on maintenance.

Pennaiyar

• Issue: Tamil Nadu’s complaint over Karnataka’s projects on this river, which rises in Karnataka.
• Court: after an order of December 2022 and failed mediation, the Supreme Court directed the Union on 2 February 2026 to constitute a tribunal.
  • On 8 May 2026, it allowed six months for this.

The Way Forward

• Single permanent tribunal: it could streamline redress, though it alone cannot solve problems that are legal, administrative, constitutional and political together.
• Data agency: a body beside the tribunal to collect and process river data, as the 2017 Bill proposed, would give every party a shared baseline.
• Cooperative federalism: parochial attitudes that set regional above national interest weaken the system.
  • Disputes are better settled by dialogue, away from political opportunism.
• A robust, transparent framework with a cooperative approach is the common requirement.
• Managing demand: if sufficient steps are not taken, uneven distribution will raise the chance of conflict. Using water better eases claims before they reach a court, and interlinking of rivers is itself held back by these same disputes.