The Cauvery River Authority, CRA will meet in New Delhi today after a gap of nine years. Convened by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, the meeting will be attended by the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry. It comes after a demand by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa that a meeting of the CRA should be convened to discuss the state's water problem. While Tamil Nadu is likely to demand immediate release of water from the Cauvery river to save the standing crops, Karnataka will seek a new policy to share the water.
Set up in 1997, the CRA is meeting for the first time after the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004. The last meeting was held in February 2003, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister.