Telangana Government may knock on Supreme Court doors over river boards

Hyderabad: The State Government is likely to move the apex court on the notification issued by the Union Government which had announced the jurisdiction of the Krishna and Godavari river management boards. According to sources, the state government is waiting for the release of the guidelines for enforcement of the gazette notification on river water management and projects.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao held a detailed discussion over the issue with Special Chief Secretary (Irrigation) Rajat Kumar to assess the impact of conferring powers to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari River Management Board ( GRMB) in the release of water and also monitoring of hydel power generation.

"The Government is unhappy that the Centre had issued the notification without finalising the water sharing formula between the two Telugu states.

Telangana has been demanding that both the States should share 50:50 of the available water. It is also the contention of the State Government that the boards have no right on hydel power generation without deciding on the share of water to be utilised by each state. A senior official said that the gazette notification was full of errors. Irrigation officials pointed out that the State Government withdrew the petition challenging the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal on water sharing from the Supreme Court as the Centre had promised to constitute a Tribunal to finalise sharing of Krishna water.

Sources said that the State Government insists that a new tribunal to decide the share of river waters between the two Telugu states be constituted first. The government is also unhappy with the Centre for not declaring the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (RLIS) as illegal while it stated that the second biggest lift irrigation project in Ranga Reddy, Palaramuru lift irrigation was declared as illegal. The Palamuru project, officials said, had already obtained some required permissions from the Central agencies and water was being utilised from the project only out of the interim share of the water allocated to Telangana.