In a significant win for telangana, the central government on thursday unveiled a procedure for allocating individual krishna river water shares between telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Following a cabinet meeting, the Union cabinet decided to approve the terms of reference for the krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-II to proceed with this procedure under the Inter State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956.

The development comes after ten years of persistent work by the state administration and chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who requested the tribunal be given the river water share problem shortly after telangana state was created. A little over 50% of the water share from Krishna, the total availability of which was estimated at 1,004 million cubic feet (TMC ft) by the krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II led by Justice Brijesh Kumar, was in question for telangana state. The previous KWDT, led by Justice Bachawat, had stated that the then-united andhra pradesh had 811 TMC ft of water available.

Telangana state has requested 575 TMC ft of water as its share and has pressed the Centre to issue terms of reference to KWDT-II limiting its decision-making to distribution of the 1,004 TMC ft available for use by andhra pradesh and telangana post-bifurcation and not bringing in the requirements or allocations of the two other upper riparian states of maharashtra and Karnataka, whose allocations were already decided.

Telangana state has maintained that the settlement of AP's share at 511 TMC feet and telangana state's share at 299 TMC feet following the bifurcation was only an ad hoc arrangement that was to be reviewed every year until KWDT-II takes a final decision on which state receives how much water from River Krishna. Nagarjunasagar, Priyadarshini Jurala, Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, and a few other major irrigation projects currently under construction in the state of telangana have a combined allocation of just over 160 TMC feet, while Dindi and other medium irrigation projects have a combined allocation of about 20 TMC feet.

Just over 248 TMC ft are required for Telangana's other significant irrigation projects in the krishna river basin, which include the 90 TMC ft palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme and the 40 TMC ft Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme. telangana claims that its overall share should be about 575 TMC ft, and officials from the irrigation department are now hopeful that the state will finally receive its fair share of water from the river now that the Centre has fixed the terms of reference for KWDT-II.

Additionally, telangana has long complained that andhra pradesh had been diverting krishna water outside of its basin region into Rayalaseema, in contravention of all norms of sharing, and that the Centre should not have permitted this. T. Harish Rao, the state's minister of finance and health who served as the irrigation minister during the BRS's first term, applauded the decision after it was made by the Union cabinet and dubbed it a "victory for Telangana."

This is a win for kcr and a win for telangana, he said. Up until recently, andhra pradesh was using our portion of the water from the krishna River. Now, that will change, and we will receive our fair share for all of our state-funded initiatives. telangana Retired Irrigation Engineers Association: "Though it took a while, we hope that at least now the Centre will fix a timeline of one or two years for KWDT-II to take a final decision on the issue."
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Telangana Andhra Pradesh

SIBY JEYYA

05/10/2023 07:37 AM