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The Centre is considering the option of letting tribunals decide the tricky issues of how Telangana and the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh should share water and power.
A beleaguered Delhi wants to avoid direct responsibility if these sensitive issues later turn politically explosive, government officials told The Telegraph. “Each of the two proposed states is at the other’s throat,” an official said.
Secretaries from key Union ministries met this afternoon to discuss how each should approach the division of assets between the two states. Union home secretary Anil Goswami chaired the meeting.
A bureaucrat said: “The Group of Ministers on Telangana will be given alternatives (by the ministries) that would include leaving the decision to a tribunal.”
Sources said the ministries would send their individual reports by November 5 to the home ministry, which will forward them to the Group of Ministers for discussion at its November 7 meeting.
Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today said the Group of Ministers would submit its report before the winter session of Parliament starts.
Before that, Shinde, who chairs the Group of Ministers, will have to take a call on the major points of contention between Telangana and Seemandhra.
Apart from water and power, he must also tackle the question of who will look after law and order in Hyderabad, which is to serve as a common capital for the first 10 years after the creation of Telangana.
“It was discussed at today’s meeting whether, instead of the government doing it (distribution of assets), it could be done by tribunals,” said an official.
“There are extremely complex questions. The tribunals use mathematical formulas to settle such issues.”
One of the potential sticking points relates to the Nagarjuna Sagar hydel project on the Krishna. The project is located on the border between Nalgonda district in Telangana and Guntur district in Seemandhra.
Distribution of water from the Srisailam project on the Krishna too is posing challenges, officials said.
Today’s meeting was attended by the secretaries of water resources and coal and the joint secretaries of power, law and justice, finance, personnel and training, and mines. Planning Commission representatives were not present.
