AP’s Banakacharla Project Work Unlikely To Take Off
GRMB says AP must clarify water source.
Hyderabad:The much-talked about Banakacharla project to divert Godavari river water to the Krishna river by Andhra Pradesh may well be a non-starter, with the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) saying even the fundamental and basic issue of sharing of Godavari waters between the basin states was never made. If this project were to go forward, the Polavaram project, from where water is proposed to be drawn for the project, in Andhra Pradesh would require a revised detailed project report.
The GRMB was asked by the Central Water Commission (CWC) to look into the pre-feasibility report (PFR) on Banakacharla submitted by AP. In its response, the GRMB said that AP’s proposal to divert an additional 200 tmc ft of water from the Polavaram dam as part of the Banakacharla project would change the scope of the Polavaram project. It would then require a revised detailed project report, which will have to be cleared by the advisory committee of the department of water resources.
The GRMB, in its letter to the CWC on July 4, also said that the proposed diversion of Godavari water from Polavaram raised inter-state water sharing issues between erstwhile unified AP (Telangana and AP now), Karnataka and Maharashtra. It said that the CWC should take care of this issue under the awards by the Godavari and Krishna water disputes tribunals.
Andhra Pradesh, the GRMB said, also needed to clarify whether the proposed project would utilise surplus water or floodwaters of the Godavari river.
The GRMB said that the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 stipulated regulation of river water to the successor states as per awards granted by the tribunals. In case of Godavari river basin, GWDT (1980) did not quantify the water availability in the Godavari river basin and apportioned among basin states instead, and agreements between the then co-basin states were made part of it.
“Thus,” the GRMB told the CWC, “there is no apportionment of Godavari river water allocated to erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh and between the successor states by any tribunal nor any mutual agreement between them.” It told the CWC that this point must be taken note of with respect to any decision taken on the Banakacharla project.
