The Andhra Pradesh government will take a stand on the verdict of the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal (BKT) on distribution of Krishna river water this week.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will hold discussions with legal experts and top officials of the Irrigation Department in the available seven weeks time and then take a decision, Irrigation and Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has said.
Addressing the media here on Sunday, Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said it was because of the ineptitude of the previous governments that the BKT had allowed Karnataka to increase the height of the Almatti dam to 524 metres to the detriment of both A.P. and Telangana.
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It was on the basis of the willingness Andhra Pradesh had expressed in 2006 to share the surplus waters in the Krishna river that the BKT ruled in favour of Karnataka. As a consequence, the reservoirs in A.P. and Telangana could not be filled to this date.
Karnataka went to the extent of filing a Special Leave Petition with the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Central government to notify the BKT verdict for raising the (Almatti) dam height. Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said the State government would not have the opportunity to present its arguments before the Supreme Court had the SLP not been filed when the TDP was in the Opposition. The BKT recently gave an interim verdict that the water allocated to the unified State of A.P. should be distributed between A.P. and Telangana.
It followed fresh arguments that the distribution of Krishna river water should be done among A.P., Telangana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka as per Section 89 of the A.P. Reorganisation Act, 2014.
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Ineptitude of
the previous governments led to the BKT allowing Karnataka to increase Almatti dam height
D. Umamaheswara Rao
Irrigation Minister