The Telugu Desam Party Telangana State unit has advised the State Government to review the agreements it made with Maharashtra on sharing Godavari water and make changes to them to ensure that the State’s interests are not lost.
TDP-TS working president A. Revanth Reddy said the Maharashtra Government had agreed during the meeting of the Chief Ministers of the two States in 2012 to maintain the height of the Tummidihatti project at 152 metres. The neighbouring State had accepted the proposal made by the then government for utilising 160 tmcft of water, at the rate of 1.8 tmcft a day for 90 days.
This was followed by a meeting of the experts’ committee in 2014 which was attended by Government’s advisor R. Vidyasagar Rao and engineer-in-chief Muralidhar Rao where the dam height was agreed at 152 metres and the same was ratified by a committee of retired chief engineers constituted by the Telangana Government.
The State Government had, however, set aside the consensus reached in the past. The Government’s decision to reduce the height of the project to 148 metres would confine the scope of the project to Adilabad district besides allowing Maharashtra to share 20 per cent of water of the Chanaka-Korata project without contributing any money for the project.
While the previous agreements signed in 1975 were aimed at considering Maharashtra’s objections in respect of projects across the Pranahita river, the present agreement would give Maharashtra a say even in the assured water to Telangana. Mr. Revanth Reddy also questioned the rationale behind not convening the meeting of the Inter State Board of which the Chief Ministers of the two States were co-chairmen.
