Govt to seek fair share for Telangana in Krishna River waters

Further, the government reiterated that the State government would not handover the components of Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects to Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

Hyderabad: The State government on Sunday directed the legal and technical teams to pursue the inter-State issues pertaining to Krishna River water sharing, before the tribunal and the courts aggressively to achieve equitable and legitimate share for Telangana in the river waters.

Further, the government reiterated that the State government would not handover the components of Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects to Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

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Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy took stock of the inter-State issues and cases before the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II (KWDT-I) and the Supreme Court at a high-level meeting held here. During the meeting, the officials explained the status of various issues pending before the KWDT-II and the Supreme Court.

The Irrigation Minister observed that injustice has been meted out to Telangana regarding the ad-hoc arrangement of Krishna water allocations to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh made in 2015, which he termed was totally arbitrary and without any basis.

He stated that the arrangement was made only for that year and being unjustly continued year after year. The meeting decided to pursue the matter before KWDT-II seeking for interim revision of ratio as 50:50, till the final allocations are made.

On the case relating to KWDT-II award pending before the Supreme Court, he instructed the officials to take necessary steps to consult neighbouring States of Maharashtra and Karnataka to resolve the issues amicably through dialogue.

Uttam Kumar Reddy reiterated that the State government would not hand over any components of Srisailam and Nagarjunsagar projects and water extraction systems to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

The decision was taken in tune with a resolution adopted in the Assembly on February 12 against handing over of the project components to the river board. He asserted that necessary actions will be taken by the government to safeguard and protect the water rights and interests of people of Telangana in Krishna basin.

Senior counsel representing the State before KWDT-II CS Vaidyanathan and his team of advocates, including V Ravinder Rao, Irrigation Advisor and former IAS officer Aditya Nath Das, Irrigation Secretary Rahul Bojja and Irrigation Special Secretary Prashant J Patil, Engineer-in-Chief B Nagendra Rao and engineers from the inter-State water resources wing in the Irrigation Department, participated in the meeting.