BENGALURU: Citing a 'severe distress' situation, the Karnataka government on Saturday expressed its inability to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu Speaking to reporters after holding an all-party meeting here, chief minister Siddaramaiah said: "We are facing a severe water crisis in the Cauvery catchment area, we cannot afford to release water. We will explain our stand to the Supreme Court ."In fact, Tamil Nadu had filed a petition in Supreme Court on August 22 seeking a directive to Karnataka to release 50.052 tmc ft of water, as mandated by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal , for 2016-17. Tamil Nadu is supposed to get 192 tmc ft of water from Karnataka during a normal year.However, Siddaramaiah said:"But this has not been a normal year in the Cauvery basin. The rains have been low in the Cauvery catchment area and this has affected the inflow into the four major reservoirs -- Kabini, KRS, Hemavathy and Harangi. As on August 24, the total inflow in the catchment area should have been 195.25 tmc ft. But the actual inflow so far has been only 108 tmc ft. There has been a shortfall of 45 per cent in the water inflow."Though the live storage capacity in all the four reservoirs is 104 tmc ft (the gross storage capacity is 114 tmc ft), the current availability of water in these reservoirs is only 51 tmc ft. "How can we release 50 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu when we have only 51 tmc ft," Siddaramaiah asked. In fact, the drinking water requirements of Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mandya and hundreds of adjoining villages in Cauvery river belt adds up to 40 tmc ft. "We are facing a drinking water crisis and we are not in a position to release water to Tamil Nadu for their crops," he added.Stating that Tamil Nadu had approached the Supreme Court by taking into account the overall rainfall situation in Karnataka instead of narrowing it down to the situation in the Cauvery catchment area, Siddaramaiah said:"We will explain the ground reality to the Supreme Court. We have so far released 29 tmc ft to Tamil Nadu despite the difficult situation faced by us. The current storage level in Tamil Nadu's Mettur reservoir is 34 tmc ft and they can manage the situation, but we are in the middle of a water crisis."