Decision follows Revanth's efforts on Tummidihatti project
HYDERABAD: There may be some hope for Telangana’s plans for constructing the barrage at Tummidihatti with the Central Water Commission calling for a meeting in New Delhi on September 1. The CWC has asked Maharashtra and Telangana irrigation officials to be present to discuss the barrage proposal and related issues.
This meeting was called following Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s letter to his Maharashtra counterpart Devandra Fadnavis for a meeting in which a mutually agreeable solution could be found on interstate issues with respect to the project. Revanth Reddy subsequently also took this matter to notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi following which it was referred to the Union jal shakti ministry. Revanth Reddy had also written to jal shakti minister C.R. Patil on this issue on August 5, according to a news release from the Chief Minister’s Office.
Maharashtra’s approval and clearance are required for the project to go ahead at the new proposed height of 152 metres, and Telangana had been pursuing the matter with the Maharashtra government for several months now, including Revanth Reddy’s letter to Fadnavis.
Telangana plans to build a two-pronged 152-metre-high barrage at Tummidihatti on the Wardha and Wainganga rivers just ahead of their confluence with both sections connected with a wall. Telangana maintains that even at that height, there will be no submergence of villages in Maharashtra. Most of the expected submergence — around 4,210 acres — once the barrage starts functioning will be on the river bed itself, with around 920 acres expected to go under water in the eco-sensitive zone of the Chapral wildlife sanctuary in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra had in 2016 agreed with the then-Telangana government proposal to build a 148-metre-high barrage, but the then government redesigned the project as the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme (KLIS), building barrages at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla on Godavari river in Telangana.
It is expected that a pre-feasibility report on the new proposal will come up for discussion at the September 1 meeting.
