Opinion: Let a tribunal hear the State

By Salla Vijaya Kumar

Three important Acts, the States Reorganisation Act, the River Boards Act and the Inter-State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act were enacted in 1956 to resolve inter-State issues.

The States Reorganisation Act has reformed the boundaries of Indian States and territories, mainly on a linguistic basis. The Telangana region of erstwhile Hyderabad State was merged with Andhra State to form Andhra Pradesh deviating from the recommendations of the States Reorganisation Commission. As a result, a prospective State, Telangana lost its independent rights over Krishna and Godavari rivers.

River Boards Act

The River Boards Act was enacted basically for promoting a river basin-wise approach in developments on inter-State rivers and to resolve the issues of water rights of respective States in a cooperative manner. Unfortunately, the Act has never been implemented. In the Krishna basin, the available water is deficient to meet the demands of its own basin areas. But the outside basin Andhra areas were accorded more priority over the Krishna waters than the inside basin Telangana areas.

After States’ reorganisation in 1956, certain projects envisaged by erstwhile Hyderabad State remained in Karnataka and areas in the Telangana region served by those projects became part of Andhra Pradesh. Sadly, neither the government of Andhra Pradesh pursued with the Centre nor the Centre initiated action suo motu to execute the projects fully as originally envisaged to benefit the areas of Telangana.

The focus was on pursuing the Centre to extend the Tungabhadra dam right canals into outside basin Andhra areas. Hence, Telangana lost 174.3 TMC of rightful water serving inside basin areas, through gravity. The Bachawat Tribunal observed, “..had there been no division of that (Hyderabad) State, there were better chances for the residents of this area to get irrigation facilities in Mahboobnagar District.”

The Nagarjunasagar project was originally envisaged by Hyderabad State to irrigate its own areas on the left side. It was turned into a joint project after the Khosla Committee (1952) was constituted by the Centre. A right canal to serve Andhra areas was included in it and execution started in 1955. Later, the Joint Control Board was reconstituted with the Chief Minister as Chairman. The left canal extended to cover large areas of the outside basin. Lift irrigation schemes on the left canal to serve inside basin areas as envisaged in the joint project report were not given effect. The Centre did not look into these aspects.

Further, the State government constantly pursued the Centre to permit it to execute stage-II, which was intended to extend the right canal further to serve huge outside basin areas. From the Srisailam project, deviating from the KWDT-I award, based on the AP submissions, diversion to the outside basin through Pothireddypadu Head Regulator was permitted by the Centre in 1981 and later the same was expanded unimaginably.

ISRWD Act, 1956

Meanwhile, since the 1956 reorganisation of States, Maharashtra and Karnataka strongly pleaded for priority in Krishna water utilisation for in-basin areas and persuaded the Centre to limit the Srisailam project as hydroelectric and execute Nagarjunasagar for stage-I.

The ISRWD Act, 1956, has limited scope than the River Boards Act, as it is envisaged for the limited purpose of settlement of disputes and is essentially concerned with judicial adjudication in accordance with the law. Only the State governments are entitled to represent at Tribunals and unfortunately, the government of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh did not properly represent the water requirements of the Telangana region. Before the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-I, in-basin projects of Telangana were pleaded to be given lower priority blatantly, than further expansions of canals in outside basin areas.

Telangana’s Grievances

One of the main reasons for the separate statehood movement was to overcome the legal barrier of non-entitlement to appear before a water dispute tribunal as a region. Though the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, which created a new State of Telangana, extended the term of KWDT-II (Brijesh Kumar Tribunal), the references given to it have limited scope and did not encompass the resolution of Telangana’s grievances.

Immediately after its formation, Telangana filed a complaint under Section-3 of ISRWD Act, 1956, to the Centre in July 2014, to refer its grievances to a Tribunal. Since the matter was not referred to a Tribunal within the mandatory one year, Telangana filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre. The Telangana government has been constantly pursuing with the Centre to refer its complaint.

In October 2020, during the second Apex Council meeting, the Centre assured the Telangana Chief Minister that it would refer the matter to KWDT-II or a new Tribunal after seeking legal opinion, on the condition that Telangana should withdraw the writ petition before the Supreme Court. Telangana withdrew the petition. But the complaint is not yet referred to a Tribunal.
Sadly, the assurance given to Telangana in the Apex Council has not been fulfilled but a gazette notification on the jurisdiction of the river management boards, which was opposed by Telangana in the Apex Council, was issued in July 2021.

It is pertinent to know that there are no project-wise or State-wise allocations made by the Tribunals and the allocations made to the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh were en bloc. Hence, without the project and State-wise allocations, it would not be possible for the KRMB to regulate the water shares of the States. The allocation of inter-State river water is the domain of the Tribunals and no other authority is empowered to do it.

The Centre should not attempt to present a fait accompli. If the same reallocations as made by the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh are to be enforced, the aspirations of the people of the new State will be in jeopardy in perpetuity. Telangana is constrained to depend on lift irrigation schemes and borewells instead of gravity irrigation and is struggling to provide the required power for irrigation and also to complete the ongoing projects, which serve drought-prone inside basin areas. It is hurting to know that even if allocations are made to all the ongoing projects, still more than 55% of the 90 lakh acres cultivable land in the Krishna basin will be left without assured water.

After a long way from 1956, now, as a State, Telangana is rightfully asking for referring its complaint to a Tribunal and the onus lies on the Centre to facilitate equitable water allocation.