Maharashtra, Telangana sign agreement on joint irrigation projects

Mumbai: Maharashtra and Telangana on Tuesday signed a "historic" agreement for constitution of Inter-State Board for joint irrigation projects.

This Board is constituted to take decisions by mutual understanding for irrigation projects such as Lendi, Pranhita and Lower Painganga, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said.

"Telangana CM K C Rao termed this agreement as historic and thanked me for taking this decision to move ahead together," Fadnavis tweeted.

Irrigation Ministers of both states-- Girish Mahajan (Maharashtra) and Harish Rao (Telangana)-- and Chief Secretaries of both states were present on the occasion.

The agreement on setting up an inter-state water board on Godavari projects, is expected to end decades of discord between the two states on utilisation of water in the river Godavari and its tributaries, an official release said.

The pact will pave the pay for the two states to work out mutually-agreeable specifications on the construction of Medigadda barrage, 20 km downstream of Kaleshwaram in Warangal district in Telangana, as part of the Kaleshwaram Project, a component of the redesigned Pranahita-Chevella project.

The barrage would allow irrigation of 16.4 lakh acres in Telangana and over 50,000 acres in some tribal areas of Maharashtra with the help of four small lift irrigation schemes, it said.

A meeting between the officials of the two states would decide the height, full reservoir level, of the barrage likely to be anywhere between 100 and 103 metres.

Fadnavis said the pact with Telangana comes after the neighbouring state had explained and convinced it about various possibilities on taking up the barrage.