CHENNAI: State Water Resource Minister Duraimurugan on Thursday categorically rejected the possibility of any more talks on Cauvery Water dispute and said that the Supreme Court is the “only option” for Tamil Nadu to get its due share of water from Karnataka.

“After holding talks for several years that fetched no desired results, we have approached the Supreme Court over the Cauvery Water dispute. We have come a long way. So, there are no more talks (with the Karnataka government or the Union government). The Supreme Court is the only option for us,” Duraimurugan told journalists hours before the Supreme Court refused to interfere in Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) direction to release 5,000 cusecs of water daily for 15 days.

Responding to a question on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene in the inter-state water dispute, the Minister said that the issue went beyond that level.

Shrugged by the meeting of the delegation of Karnataka with Jal Sakthi Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat during the early hours of the day (Thursday), the Minister said that it is similar to the meeting of the all party MPs’ delegation from TN with the Union Minister on the previous day.

On Karnataka government’s appeal in the Supreme Court against the CWMA’s order to release 5,000 cusecs of water to TN, the Minister said that the TN government had also approached the Apex Court. Officials of the WRD said that the SC order comes as a breather to the department, which has been struggling to save the standing kuruvai crops in the Delta region. “At present, we are releasing 6,500 cusecs of water daily from Mettur for Delta irrigation. The present storage level of water in Mettur is at 40.8 ft (11.3 TMC). The SC direction will come handy to manage the situation for the next 15 days,” said a senior official.

The SC direction will come handy to manage the situation for the next 15 days, says senior WRD official