Hyderabad: With both TS and AP sticking to their respective stands on the Palamuru-Rangareddy and Dindi Lift Irrigation projects, the first meeting of the Apex Council held in Delhi on Wednesday failed to reach consensus. The matter was left to the Central government to represent to the Supreme Court under whose direction the meeting was convened.
TS Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao categorically said in the meeting that the TS government will not stop construction work on the projects since it did not violate any norms.
Mr Rao said that the TS government will obtain necessary permissions regarding these projects as and when needed. AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu responded by saying that his government will continue to oppose these two projects and there was no going back on its stand.
Union water resources minister Uma Bharti convened the first meeting of the Apex Council consequent on the directions of the Supreme Court on a petition by Krishna delta farmers against the TS government for taking up these two projects. The petitioners had said that they feared poor inflows for Krishna delta and thereby affecting their riparian rights.
Along with the two Chief Ministers, the meeting was attended by ministers, officials and engineers from both the states. The two lift schemes topped the agenda of the meeting. Putting forth his arguments, Mr Rao stated that both the Palamuru and Dindi projects cannot be considered new as they were sanctioned and approved by previous undivided AP governments.
He also argued that each and every political party, including the Telugu Desam and BJP, had in their 2014 election manifestos, promised to complete the projects. This, he said, was proof that the two projects were not new, as was being alleged by residuary AP state.
Mr Rao also said that as a Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi had addressed an election meeting in Mahbubnagar during which he accused successive governments of failing to take up the Palamuru-Rangareddy scheme and promised to complete it. Mr Rao presented audio and video clippings of the speech in the Apex Council meeting.
Countering this argument, Mr Naidu said that as per the original GO issued by the government of undivided AP, the Palamuru-Rangareddy scheme was supposed to be taken up from the foreshore of Jurala project. He said that the TS government has changed the plan and included Srisailam project instead of Jurala, besides enhancing the utilisation of waters thereby affecting the interests of residuary AP.
Mr Naidu brought to the notice of Apex Council meeting that as per Item 10 of Schedule 11 of the AP Reorganisation Act, both the projects were not listed. He said that this meant that even according to the Central government, they were unauthorised projects and could not be taken up.
As far as other issues are concerned, consensus was reached on allowing the Krishna River Management Board to set up telemetry systems at all the irrigation projects to quantify both inflows and outflows.
The Union minister announced a five-member expert panel that would go into the other disputes like TS claim over share in Godavari water diversion to Krishna basin and ad-hoc sharing of Krishna waters for the present and ensuing water year.
The Centre has agreed to replace two members A.D. Mohale and R. Goel in the expert panel following a complaint by the TS government that they had shown special interest towards AP in their previous assignments.
