Telangana To Implead Into Brijesh Kumar Tribunal Hearings For It’s Water Share

A review meeting on irrigation projects chaired by CM KCR decided for the State to file an implead petition before the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal headed by retired SC Judge Brijesh Kumar for redistribution of waters between Telangana & AP.

Earlier this year, the term of the tribunal has been extended to enable apportionment of water between Telangana and the successor state of Andhra Pradesh and the then Central govt. asked the tribunal to make the allocation on the basis of the projects located in each of the 2 States and its requirement of water.

Telangana’s main concern at the tribunal would be that 3 of it’s key projects were not allocated any waters despite all of them being well with the Krishna Basin. Telangana activists have long since blamed the erstwhile Andhra rulers for this loss as they clubbed the 3 projects with 4 of their projects which are nowhere in the basin and asked surplus waters for all 7 of these from river Krishna. Andhra’s greed didn’t go down with the tribunal who struck down the demand altogether saying AP can’t have any ‘rights’ over surplus waters. This has put the Telangana projects in a piquant situation. Now the State Government for the new State want to set things right by impleading into the arguments and presenting it’s case.

The 3 projects – Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthi Lift Irrigation Scheme (MGKLIS), Jawahar Nettempadu Lift Irrigation Scheme (JNLIS) and AMRP (Srisailam Left Bank Canal – SLBC) were taken up to address the irrigation needs of the drought-prone areas in the districts of Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda.  They require  25 TMC, 22 TMC and 30 TMC respectively. That is all three projects put together would require 77 TCM of waters from the Krishna.

The other four projects AP took up in Rayalaseema and Andhra regions require 150.5 TMC of surplus water. And even AP is expected to continue insisting for surplus waters at the tribunal.