In a bid to resolve the inter-State dispute over sharing of Krishna river waters between Telangana and Andhra Padesh, the Centre on Wednesday brought Chief Ministers K Chandrasekhar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu, together.
The first meeting of the apex council on river waters in New Delhi on Wednesday, chaired by the Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti was attended by both the Chief Ministers and the senior officials of the two States.
This was the first meeting of the apex council since its formation following the bifurcation of the two States. Uma Bharati had convened the meeting of the two Chief Ministers following the raging dispute and objections by the two state to each other’s irrigation projects.
Telangana was demanding increasing its share of Krishna waters after Andhra Pradesh had diverted Godavari water to Krishna delta through Pattiseema lift Irrigation projects.
The two States were locked in a fierce tug of war over the sharing of river waters, specially of Krishna and Godavari and several meetings of the two Chief Ministers failed to resolve the issues.
Telangana has the grouse that Andhra Prades was drawing excess water through projects such as Pothireddy Padu head regulator and Handri Neeva. After failing to get a verdict from Krishna River Management Board and the Central Water Commission, Telangana government had approached the Center for redress.
Andhra Pradesh on the other hand has been staking claim over the right to operate the right bank canal of Nagarjuna Sagar project over river Krishna. it also raised projects of Telangana including Palamuru-Ranga Reddy and Dindi projects. However these issues were not included in the agenda of today’s meeting and
At today’s meeting following the opening remarks of Uma Bharati, the Krishna river management Board officials made their presentation. later the officials of the two states made presentations arguing their respective cases. The presentation of AP government was made by Shashi Bhushan, Secretary Irrigatoin Department while for Telangana the presentation was made by Telangana irrigation secretary SK Joshi.
Earlier the Chief Ministers K Chandrasekhar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu met Uma Bharati separately and had a brief interaction. The two Chief Ministers also had a customary meeting.
Though both the states were specifically asked to send only a five member team for the meeting, ultimately 40 people were present in the meeting as MPs, Secretaries and other officials were also allowed to attend.
After the meeting Uma Bharati told the media in the presence of the two Chief Ministers that the Apex Council meeting evolved consensus on three issues including the use of telemetry on all the irrigation projects of the two states and sharing on the basis of the availability of the water in the rivers.
Uma Bharati advised both the states not to indulge in disputes but harmoniously resolve the problems. “We have discussed all the issues relating to the sharing of water between the two states”, she said. The sharing will be supervised by the officials of the water resources departments of the two states and the Central government.
A committee of the officials of the engineering departments of the two states and the Center will assess the availability of water in the catchments areas of the river and submit a report to the Krishna River Tribunal. The two states will have to follow the recommendations of the Tribunal while constructing the irrigation projects, she said.