Telangana to Move SC Against AP's Banakacharla–Nallamalasagar Project
The development comes amid Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s push to accelerate key irrigation and development proposals.
Hyderabad: Telangana is all set to escalate its battle with Andhra Pradesh over the latter’s proposed Banakacharla-Nallamalasagar link project (BNLP), drawing up plans to approach the Supreme Court to stall it.
On Saturday, irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, along with senior department officials, is scheduled to meet with senior Supreme Court counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi to discuss the way forward on taking the matter of AP’s plans to the apex court.
Telangana was opposed from the beginning to AP’s plans on the project, which was previously planned to take so-called ‘flood waters’ from the Godavari river to the Krishna, from Banakacharla to the Polavaram project. AP later changed the plan and instead decided that the receiving point for Godavari water from Banakacharla will be the Nallamalasagar reservoir.
Though the name has now been changed, with AP replacing Polavaram with Nallamalasagar, Telangana maintains that the project violates river water agreements on the two rivers, and that if AP is allowed by the Centre to go ahead with the project, it will be seriously detrimental to Telangana’s interests.
Telangana’s move to approach the Supreme Court follows AP submitting a pre-feasibility study on the project to the Central Water Commission (CWC), and also issuing tenders for preparation of a detailed project report.
Telangana is also opposed to AP’s plans to get Nallamalasagar included in the Centre’s Godavari-Cauvery river interlinking project and maintains that the river link should take Godavari water from Inchampalli, a proposal that the CWC had agreed to in principle earlier.
With the Telugu Desam being part of the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, Telangana is concerned about possible pressure that AP will exert on the Centre that the river-linking should happen from Nallamalasagar, that instead of Inchampalli. Telangana has decided to explore its options of filing a case in the Supreme Court on this aspect as well.