KCR rubbishes AP government charge

New Delhi: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, here on Wednesday, refuted the charge of the AP government that Palamuru-Rangareddy and Dindi Lift Irrigation schemes in Telangana State were new ones. He said they were only ongoing projects approved by the erstwhile government in the united State.

Presenting his arguments at the Apex Council meeting called for by the Union Water Resources Ministry here, he said Telangana State was not against any other State and never had any intention to work against their interests.

His effort was to amicably resolve all disputes to every one's benefit, he said.Pointing out that after formation of the new State of Telangana, his government had requested Centre to refer the matter pertaining to allocation of water through a reference to Tribunal under Section 3 of Inter State River Waters Dispute Act.

However, despite lapse of about two years four months period, no action had been taken resulting in loss of valuable time for providing irrigation facilities to farmers. This delay led to a writ petition in the Supreme Court for redressal of the State's grievance and the matter was sub judice.

The two lift irrigation projects being objected to by the AP government were old ones taken up by the erstwhile united State based on the liberty given by Krishna Waters Dispute Tribunal - I to it to utilise surplus waters. Administrative approval for detailed survey and preparation of Detailed project report vide G.O.Ms.No. 72 (dated August 8, 2013) was given in erstwhile AP.

He said not his own party but also others had included the promise of early completion of the said projects in their manifestos. The Prime Minister too had made the promise at a public meeting at Mahbubnagar on April 22, 2014, he pointed out.

In fact, the PMO had gone ahead and sought a proposal on December 10, 2010 itself for considering the Dindi lift irrigation scheme as a national project. In the light of these facts, the contentions raised by Andhra Pradesh that the two projects were new were wrong and baseless, he said.

The provisions of Schedule-XI of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 only provided the principles governing the functioning of the River Management Boards and the Act had given only a partial list of irrigation projects under construction in Krishna basin and no project of Godavari basin was mentioned, he reminded the council.

As for the working arrangement, the Centre had made no prior consultations while constituting the expert committee. Secondly, neutrality was the basis for trust and the Telangana State government had already brought to the notice of the Centre and the CWC the biased nature of some of the members.

He said a transparent monitoring mechanism was the backbone of a river management system. The progress in this regard was far from satisfactory. Till such a time, a telemetric system must be put in place, he observed.

Citing Godavari Waters Dispute Tribunal award, he said, while dealing with the Polavaram issue (diversion of 80 tmcft of water to Krishna basin), he said, the award had ordered that the
share of 14 tmcft to State of Maharashtra, 21 tmcft to State of Karnataka and 45 tmcft to erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh for utilisation above Nagarjunasagar Project duly displacing discharges for Krishna Delta, irrespective of the actual diversion taking place.

This allocation must be done as the Polavaram Project had been cleared now, he argued. Also, the Krishna Tribunal had stated that “in the event of augmentation of the waters of the river Krishna by the diversion of the waters of any river no State shall be debarred from claiming before any authority or Tribunal that it is entitled to a greater share in the waters of river Krishna on account of such augmentation.”

As AP had planned and executed Pattiseema LIS, a new project on the river Godavari, and started diverting 80 tmcft of water into Krishna river, Telangana State was entitled to its share now, he added. While Polavaram was designed on dependable water, Pattiseema was based on surplus water, he added.