AP-Telangana to finalise river water sharing in July

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, June 30

The talks between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to resolve the inter-state disputes would continue when the Chief Minister of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy meet again in Amaravati in two weeks.

The main agenda to be resolved would be the sharing of river waters, with Andhra demanding a major share being a lower riparian state.

AP Chief Secretary L V Subrahmanyam said the two-day conclave between chief ministers and officials of the two Telugu states had yielded good results with most of the inter-state pending issues having been taken up. Telangana is persuading AP to accept the move to link Rivers Godavari and Krishna so that both can benefit from such an arrangement and water does not flow into the ocean.

Officials of both states have been asked to come up with a report on water sharing that aim as resolving the issue rather than complicating matters. “KCR has already announced that the two states will work on the principal of “gave and take” and Reddy has accepted that.

Reddy, who left for Vishakhapatnam after the first day’s meeting announced that both governments were committed to utilise water from Godavari river to mitigate water problems in Rayalaseema region in AP and Palamuru Nalgonda areas in Telangana. This, he said, was based on reports submitted by officials, which suggest diverting four thousand million cubic feet (4 TMC) of water from River Godavari to Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam projects.

Subrahmanyam said discussions had also taken place on the provisions in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 wherein institutions mentioned in Schedule IX and X had to be divided between the two states. This included the Andhra Pradesh Bhawan in Delhi and division of other assets and liabilities between the states.

Andhra Pradesh government released a White Paper last year where it claimed that assets worth Rs 1.97 lakh crore, related to government companies and corporations and state institutions, listed under Schedules IX and X of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 are yet to be distributed between the two states.