AP Under Increasing Pressure on Banakacharla

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government, for the second time in one week, has been put in a spot over its proposed Polavaram-Banakacharla link project (PBLP), being to explain the factual position of the project. This follows Telangana complaining to the Central Water Commission (CWC) under the Union Jal Shakti Ministry on October 10, that AP was going ahead with the project that was illegal, as well as to the management boards of the Krishna and Godavari rivers.

The Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) on October 16 asked the AP government to explain the “factual position” on the state floating a tender for preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) for the PBLP. The GRMB’s letter to AP’s water resources department follows a similar letter to that state from the Krishna River Management Board, on October 14.

It is learnt that AP government is of the opinion that Telangana was making a mountain out of a molehill and that its water resources department had only floated a tender for preparation of the DPR. The view in AP, it is learnt, was that Telangana was rushing with its complaints even when nothing concrete in terms of the project’s plans had been drafted, which can happen only when the DPR is prepared.

This appears to have not deterred the Krishna and Godavari river boards from calling for explanations from Andhra Pradesh.

In its October 10 letter, Telangana had said that the CWC and the two river boards should instruct AP “to desist from taking up any kind of activity” related to the project, including “any further land survey, calling/awarding of tenders” and to ensure that “no appraisal of PBLP be taken up” which Telangana maintained, would violate provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, and the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal award on agreement of river water shares between the two states, as well as with Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The PBLP, which AP has been trying to push ahead, was also objected to by Karnataka, which wrote to the Centre three weeks ago saying that if AP went ahead with the project that takes Godavari water to the Krishna river, then Bengaluru reserved the right to claim an additional 112 tmc ft of the Krishna water as per the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal agreement’s provisions.

Karnataka also practically threatened that it would start storing the additional water at its Almatti dam, and asked the jal shakti Ministry to inform it of the date of approval for the PBLP.

Maharashtra had also written to the centre, stating that that it too would take its share of so-called flood water from Godavari if AP is allowed to use flood waters for the PBLP. Maharastra had also warned — just as Karnataka had done — that it will also take 74 tmc ft of water from the Krishna.

Maharashtra, in its October 8 letter to Jal Shakti Ministry, had said that since AP was planning to divert 243 tmc ft of Godavari water into the Krishna for the PBLP, the states under the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-I’s award — meaning Maharashtra and Karnataka — would have the right to seek a share from such diversions.