M’rashtra, Telengana end Godavari water dispute

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, March 8

Maharashtra and Telangana today signed an agreement to share water of the Godavari and its tributaries, thus ending a 40-year-old dispute.

Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Telangana, Devendra Fadnavis and K Chandrasekhar Rao, respectively, signed an accord to set up an interstate water board that would lay down specifications on the construction of Medigadda barrage.

The barrage, 20 km downstream of Kaleshwaram in Warangal district, is designed to allow four lift-irrigation projects that would benefit 16.4 lakh acres in Telangana and over 50,000 acres in Maharashtra's tribal belt.

Telangana CM Chandrasekhar Rao said officials from his state were working out measures to ensure that submergence of land in Maharashtra was minimum.