Upcoming meeting of CMs of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh likely to focus on river water issues

The meeting is being viewed as an occasion laden with significance as it aims to resolving long-standing issues pertaining to the State reorganisation Act, 2014.

Hyderabad: The upcoming meeting between the Chief Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is expected to focus on several critical issues related to river water sharing between the two States.

The meeting is being viewed as an occasion laden with significance as it aims to resolving long-standing issues pertaining to the State reorganisation Act, 2014.

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Both the states have tried to find a solution to such issues on multiple occasions, but because of the hard stance taken by both sides, they continued to elude solution.

The Godavari River Management Board and the Krishna River Management Board, established under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, were intended to help manage and regulate the river waters between the two states.

But both the states are often finding themselves at loggerheads more in respect of Krishna water sharing, while the KRMB remained a silent spectator. The conflict between the two states got escalated over the last two years culminating in a sort of confrontation with the AP forces occupying the Nagarjuna Sagar dam in December last year.

The project which was under the operational control of Telangana for the past ten years was taken over consequently by the Krishna River Management Board along with the responsibility of its protection and surveillance.

The CRPF deployment on the dam site continued for the past seven months resulted in the deprival of free access even to the dam maintenance staff from both the states.

‘The Ministry of Home and the Ministry of Jal Shakti, which intervened to avoid what could have been an ugly face off between the two states, are yet to restore status quo at the dam site.

The government of Telangana had already written to the Ministry of Jal Shakti appealing for withdrawal of KRMB from the role of dam management.

Though it is more or less an issue between the two riparian states, they could make no headway in their efforts resolve it on their own. Rest of the issues pertaining to water sharing and the fate of the new projects taken up by both the states are before the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II, that was given fresh terms of reference by the Centre last year.

The Chief Ministers of the two states, may not delve deep into the water issues that have already been referred to the tribunal. They are expected to focus their attention mainly to restoration of normal relations for facilitating hassle free operation of the major irrigation projects, said the officials.

The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) is headquartered presently in Hyderabad. Moves are afoot to shifting it to Andhra Pradesh as it was laid down in the re-organistaion act.

Telangana has no issues with its shifting to any location that is part of the Krishna basin instead of Visakhapatnam as proposed earlier by the AP government.