The move will have far-reaching implications. Once the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal comes up with its final order, it will be binding on Karnataka to release water from Cauvery river to Tamil Nadu as per the Tribunal's recommendations.

The Planning Commission's proposals are seen as a bid to mollify the Vajpayee Government's mercurial ally J Jayalalitha on the Cauvery water issue. She has, of late, stepped up pressure on the ruling coalition to frame a scheme to ensure that Karnataka complies with the Tribunal's interim order.

The proposals, contained in the special action plan prepared by the Planning Commission's I&CAD division, might come as sweet music to AIADMK, but it threatens to upset the ruling combine's calculations in Karnataka, where the BJP-Lok Shakti alliance notched up handsome gains in theLok Sabha elections held earlier this year.

The special action plan, drafted recently, is likely to be taken up soon by the Union Cabinet. It calls for suitably amending the ISRWD Act so that ``once an application under Section 3 of the Act (33 of 1956) is received from a state, it should be mandatory on the part of the Union Government to constitute a Tribunal within a period not exceeding one year from the date of receipt of the application by any disputant state.''

But the important, and relevant, clauses follow after this. While Section V (a) (ii) provides that the State shall be required to furnish necessary data for which purpose the Tribunal may be vested with powers of a Court, Section v (a) (iv) entails that a Tribunal's award should have the same force and sanction behind it as an order or decree of the Supreme Court to make its award really binding on the concerned party-states and the Union for its implementation.

In order to prevent inordinate delays, it has been proposed that an award of aTribunal must be made within five years from the date of constitution a Tribunal. ``If, however, for some reason, a Tribunal feels that a five years' period has to be extended, the Union Government may, on a reference made by the Tribunal, extend its term.''

It further provides that ``a tribunal's award should also decide the period of its implementation along with its funding schedule which should be binding on each of the concerned states involved in the dispute.''

The ISRWD Act was enacted in 1956 to deal with conflicts, and included provisions for the establishment of tribunals to adjudicate where direct negotiations had failed.