Hyderabad: The Telangana government will be filing a petition on Monday before the Krishna Tribunal for fresh allocation of river waters, among all the four riparian states.
A high-level team of officials will be in Delhi on Monday to file a form-al petition in this regard claiming that Telangana, being the largest contributor and having the largest catchment area of Krishna River in undivided AP, should get a major share of Krishna waters. A petition under Section 3 of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act will be filed to claim the share in Krishna waters, said Telangana irrigation minister T. Harish Rao.
The Krishna River Wat-er Tribunal, constituted by the Centre in 2004, submitted its interim report in 2010 and took another three years to announce the final report after adjudicating all the objections put forth by the three rip-arian states of AP, Mah-arashtra and Karnataka.
The Brijesh Kumar Tri-bunal had allotted a little over 1,000 TMC ft of water to undivided Andhra Pradesh, which included the Telangana region.
However, with the formation of the new state, Telangana is now seeking a fresh look into allocations among all the four riparian states (including Telangana). “Since the Centre has recently extended the term of the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal by two more years, it is for the Tribunal to distribute waters afresh and also do justice to Telangana region, which has been denied all these years,” Mr Harish Rao said.
Though few assured all-ocations have been made to Telangana under Jura-la, Bhima, Nagarjuna-sagar Left Bank Canal, state officials claim they are only getting a little over 70 TMC ft of water, all against the total allocation of 811 TMC ft of water for the undivided state by the Bachawat Tri-bunal. Though surplus waters were also included in the latest Brijesh Kumar Tribunal Award, officially there are no allocations to AMR Lift, Srisailam Left Bank (tunnel) project, Kalwakurthy, Nettempadu, Hyderabad Metro Water Supply Schemes and to various medium scale projects.
“We want our entitleme-nt of a major share in the waters as Telangana has the larger catchment than residuary AP,” said a senior official.
“We are entitled to get at least 600 TMC ft of water for Telangana,” Mr Harish Rao said.
