Telangana, Andhra Pradesh governments stick to their guns on river interlink
Hyderabad: The Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh governments will stick to their stand of not compromising on the matter of interlinking of rivers proposed by the Centre till their interests are met.
The stand will be made clear at the annual general body meeting of the National Water Development Agency (NWDA), convened by the water resources ministry in Delhi on Tuesday.
TS irrigation minister T. Harish Rao and AP water resources minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao, along with their respective secretaries and engineers, are attending the meeting.
Telangana state has objected to the conclusion of the NWDA that more than 750 tmc ft of Godavari river water is surplus at the Itchampally project site.
It says that it is committed to using its share of 950 tmc ft for all the ongoing and proposed projects. As such, there will not be surplus flow of Godavari water at Itchampally.
TS will reiterate its contention that it will utilise the allocated water; any surplus shall be estimated only when all the pending projects are completed.
If surplus water from the Mahanadi river is added to the Godavari river in AP, the same can be shared by both TS and AP.
TS will oppose taking up the Dummugudem-Nagar-junasagar tail pond at this stage as part of the interlinking of the Godavari and Krishna rivers.
For its part, the Andhra Pradesh government will welcome the proposal to interlink the Mahanadi and the Godavari, as it will provide surplus water that can be used for projects in AP. However, the AP government will not readily agree to the Godavari-Palar-Cauvery rivers linkage at this stage.
It will tell the meeting that the interlinking of the rivers has already been taken up by the AP Government through the Pattiseema project, which pumps Godavari water into the Krishna.
It also intends to extend the surplus Godavari waters to the Penna river basin via the Krishna basin within AP.
The AP government will say that only after the Godavari is linked to the Krishna and Penna systems will further surplus for transferring to other river basins be worked out.
