Hyderabad: The Justice Brijesh Kumar tribunal on Thursday started its most significant hearing to adjudicate distribution and allocation of 1,005 tmc ft of Krishna waters awarded to erstwhile AP in 2013 among TS and Andhra Pradesh. It is expected that the hearings will be prolonged.
On Thursday, the tribunal initiated a preliminary process of identifying the issues for taking up the hearing, which was attended by senior counsels A.K. Ganguly (Andhra Pradesh) and C.S. Vaidyanathan (Telangana state) and their team of advocates as well as senior officials from the irrigation and inter-state disputes wing of both states.
While TS as submitted 16 issues, AP as submitted 11 for adjudication to the tribunal.
This process will continue till Friday. Later the tribunal will allot time for hearing, cross examination and counter arguments before it adjudicates on the matter. Officials said the entire process may take not less than three years from now.
The main contention of TS is that the southern part of state including Hyderabad is located in the Krishna basin, and it has largest catchment area of the river as compared to AP. As such it should get a bigger share of the river water than AP.
Telangana state contends that in any fresh allocation or redistribution of water, projects within the Krishna basin should be given priority and it should ensured that the water is not allocated to projects located in other basins like Telugu Ganga, KC Canal, Srisailam right branch canal, Handri-Neeva, Galeru Nagari, Nagarjunasagar Right main canal etc.
It wanted the tribunal to consider usage of Godavari waters in Krishna basin projects by AP, the reduction of Krishna delta water allocation following plans to build the Amaravati capital city in more than 50,000 acres of Krishna delta area.
AP contented that there should be no change in the allotments made for the projects by the erstwhile Bachawat Commission which is still in vogue and which the Brijesh Kumar award of 2013 had endorsed. AP questioned whether Section 89 of the bifurcation Act specifically mentioned that water allocation cannot be granted to projects located outside the Krishna basin.
