Mumbai: The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal has allocated 419,000 million cubic feet (tmcft) of water to Tamil Nadu out of 740 tmcft available in the basin. The actual release by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, however, would be only 192 tmcft annually.

In the final order in the decades-old row, which ran into over 1,000 pages in five volumes, the three-member tribunal headed by retired Justice N P Singh allocated 270 tmcft of water for Karnataka, 30 tmcft to Kerala and seven tmcft for Puducherry in a "normal" year.

The order said that Karnataka should make monthly deliveries out of the 192 tmcft to Tamil Nadu during a normal year at the inter-state point identified as Billigundlu gauge and discharage station located on the common border.

Under the monthly schedule, Tamil Nadu would get in June (10 tmcft), July (34), August (50), September (40), October (22), November (15), December (8), January (3) and February, March, April and May (2.5 each).

The tribunal, which was constituted in 1990, had, in its interim order, allocated 205 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu. The final order also supercedes the agreements of 1892 and 1924 between the then governments of Madras and Mysore.

Karnataka had opposed the setting up of the tribunal by the National Front government in 1990, which had also enacted a law against the interim award, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court. The interim award had also triggered riots in Bangalore and some basin districts in Karnataka.

The final order shall come into operation from the date it is notified by the central government under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act. A notification is expected in 90 days. Any party to the dispute can challenge the order in the Supreme Court.