The Cabinet Sub-Committee constituted to discuss the decision of the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal (BKT) on Krishna water dispute on the scope of Section 89 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act was of the view that it should have another round of discussion with senior counsel A.K. Ganguli and his legal team before making a final call on the matter.
This was decided at a meeting of the sub-committee presided over by Deputy Chief Minister K.E. Krishna Murthy here on Tuesday.
The other sub-committee members who attended were Minister for Water Resources Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, Minister for Social Welfare Ravela Kishore Babu, and Minister for Transport S. Raghava Rao.
Secretary for Water Resources Shashi Bhushan Kumar, Engineering-in-Chief M. Venkateswara Rao, inter-state water resource Chief Engineer P. Rama Krishna Murthy were the officials who were present.
Various aspects
The sub-committee was apprised of the various aspects of the decision of the tribunal confining the scope of Section 89 to the two successor States of only Andhra Pradesh and Telangana instead of four States, including Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Crucial observations
The sub-committee was constituted to carefully consider the seven ‘crucial observations’ made by the tribunal:
1. Section 89 of the Reorganisation Act does not lead to any such inference or conclusion for fresh allocation amongst the four riparian States.
2. There is not even a mention of Telangana, let alone reallocation of water in the section.
3. Section 89 did not specify allocations to projects, in general, and mentioned allocations only to projects for which allocation was fixed by the earlier tribunals.
4. Allocations made on the basis of water utilisations outside Krishna basin were valid on historic grounds. Rayalaseema, which was outside the basin, was therefore entitled for Krishna water.
5. The two successor States (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) could only share what was allocated to the undivided Andhra Pradesh, nothing more or nothing less, the tribunal observed.
6. The claim of Telangana state that erstwhile Andhra Pradesh was divided because of the inequitable and faulty allocation of water was rejected.
7. The reason stressed repeatedly by Telangana in its petition to the Supreme Court was not borne out from the statement or Objectives and Reasons and the Salient Features of the Bill, the Tribunal observed.
Tribunal confined the scope of Section 89 to only Andhra Pradesh
and Telangana
