Victory for Telangana as Centre Greenlights Krishna River Water Share Resolution
Hyderabad: In a major victory for Telangana state, the Central government on Thursday announced a mechanism under which individual shares of Krishna River water will be decided between Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh.
The Union Cabinet’s decision, approving the terms of reference for going ahead with this process by the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-II under Inter State River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act, 1956, was announced in New Delhi after a Cabinet meeting.
The development comes after a decade of repeated efforts by the state government and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, who, soon after Telangana state was formed, asked the Centre that the river water share issue be assigned to the tribunal.
At stake for Telangana state was a little more than 50 per cent of the water share from Krishna, the total availability of which was pegged at 1,004 thousand million cubic feet (TMC ft) by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II headed by Justice Brijesh Kumar. The previous KWDT, headed by Justice Bachawat, had said the availability of water was 811 TMC ft for the then-united Andhra Pradesh.
Telangana state has been seeking 575 TMC ft of water as its share and has been pressing the Centre to issue terms of reference to KWDT-II restricting its decision-making to distribution of the 1,004 TMC ft available for use by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana post bifurcation, and not bring in the requirements or allocations of the two other upper riparian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, whose allocations were already decided upon.
Following the bifurcation, AP’s share was settled at 511 TMC ft, while Telangana state’s share was set at 299 TMC ft, which Telangana state has maintained was only an ad hoc arrangement that was to reviewed every year until KWDT-II takes a final call on which state gets how much of water from River Krishna.
The existing major irrigation projects in Telangana state, including Nagarjunasagar, Priyadarshini Jurala, and Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, along with a few others between them, have an allocation of just over 160 TMC ft, along with medium irrigation projects including Dindi, and others, which have around 20 TMC ft allocated.
Telangana’s other major irrigation projects in the Krishna River basin need just over 248 TMC ft, including the 90 TMC-ft Palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme, and the 40 TMC-ft capacity Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme.
In all, Telangana contends that its share should be around 575 TMC ft and irrigation department officials now hope that with the Centre fixing the terms of reference for KWDT-II, the state will finally get its due share of water from the river.
Telangana had also been, for long, complaining that Andhra Pradesh was using more than its share of water, in violation of all conditions of sharing, diverting Krishna water to outside of its basin area into Rayalaseema, something that the Centre should not allow.
Following the Union Cabinet decision, state finance and health Minister T. Harish Rao, who, in the BRS’s first term was the irrigation minister, welcomed the decision, calling it a “victory for Telangana.”
He said: “This is a victory for KCR, a victory for Telangana. Until now, our share of Krishna River water was being used by Andhra Pradesh. That will change now and we will get our share for each of our projects in the state.”
“Though it took long, 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,” the Telangana Retired Irrigation Engineers Association said.
