Mekedatu dam project dispute
POLITY- INTER STATE DISPUTE
23 NOVEMBER 2025
- Karnataka is planning to build a ₹9,000-crore balancing reservoir at Mekedatu, about 100 km from Bengaluru, for impounding 67.16 thousand million cubic ft (TMC) of water.
- It will have a 400 MW hydro power component too.
- The project will submerge around 4,996 hectares of land, including about 4,800 hectares of forest and wildlife land.
- It is expected to help Karnataka utilise an additional 4.75 TMC of water allotted by the Supreme Court, in its judgment in February 2018 on the Cauvery dispute, to meet the growing drinking water needs of Bengaluru.
- Karnataka government has decided to submit a “revised” Detailed Project Report (DPR) to the Centre on the Mekedatu balancing reservoir across the inter-State river Cauvery.
- Five days earlier, the Supreme Court termed as “premature” the application of Tamil Nadu challenging the project proposed by Karnataka.
- With this development, the decks have been cleared for the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC) to examine the upper riparian State’s proposal.
