From cooperation to conflict: The untold story of Neyyar water sharing between Kerala and Tamil Nadu

For over 40 years, Kerala supplied water from the Neyyar River to Tamil Nadu without a formal agreement, based solely on an understanding. This arrangement, which began after India's independence, supported irrigation in the Vilavancode taluk of Kanniyakumari district, a region that was part of the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin State until 1956.

The Neyyar irrigation project, initiated in 1951 by the Travancore-Cochin State, became a joint Kerala-Madras scheme by the time it was completed. At its commissioning in 1959, then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Kamaraj inaugurated the Neyyar Left Bank Canal Scheme in Kaliyakkavilai village. His Kerala counterpart, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, sent a message of congratulations, highlighting the bipartisan nature of the cooperation.

The project was designed to irrigate 36,000 acres, including about 9,000 acres in Kanniyakumari district. According to a report in The Hindu on February 10, 1959, the additional rice yield from the benefited land was estimated at 20,000 tonnes per year. The dam, a masonry structure, has two main canals, each with a discharge capacity of 300 cubic feet per second.

The bonhomie between the two states was evident when Tamil Nadu Governor Bishnu Ram Medhi declared open the dam in the presence of his Kerala counterpart, B. Ramakrishna Rao. Medhi called the project 'a symbol of inter-State co-operation,' while Rao described it as 'symbolic of our hopes and aspirations of greater co-operation between neighbouring States.'

However, this spirit of cooperation faded. In 2004, a legal battle began between Kerala and Tamil Nadu over water sharing from the Neyyar, lasting nearly 15 years. The dispute underscores how water-sharing compacts can turn from healthy examples of inter-state accommodation into sources of friction during times of scarcity.