Water war: Centre calls Apex Council to break deadlock

New Delhi: The Union Water Resources Ministry will soon convene a meeting of the Apex Council to resolve the pending river water issues between the two Telugu States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Sources here said that this intervention has become necessary as both the state governments seem to have run into a controversy over the sharing of the Krishna river waters of late with AP announcing the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme to augment water supply to Rayalaseema region through Nagarjuanasagar Right Canal and Pothireddypadu and Muchhumarri LI schemes. It is a Rs 6,800-crore project and the Telangana government immediately raised its objection with the Krishna River Water Management Board (KRMB) over the same. The KRMB had gone ahead and wrote two letters to the AP government asking it to stall the proposed LI scheme works until further orders and also asked it to stop drawing waters from Krishna as it had exceeded its drawal limits of May.

The AP government went ahead and questioned the Godavari water utilization by the Telangana government which has gone ahead and constructed the Kaleshwaram LI project and has several more in the pipeline.

The Apex Council has been under the impression so far that the two governments would resolve the water disputes amicably going by the friendship between the two Chief Ministers, K Chandrasekhar Rao and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The two Chief Ministers are the members of the Apex Council as per the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2014.

The two CMs would be asked to submit their views on both Godavari and Krishna waters existing allocations and sharing and the contentions thereof before the meeting. There are several issues pending, including the address of the of KRMB office which AP wants to be shifted to it while Telangana insists on retaining the same in Hyderabad.