The Andhra Pradesh Government will request the Centre to vest the supervisory committee, to be constituted in line with the Supreme Court’s orders on the Babli project, with adequate powers and functions to address its concerns.
It will file a review petition in the apex court if this committee is not vested with such powers.
This decision was taken by Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy following suggestions made by opposition leaders at an all-party meeting on Babli here on Monday. Representatives of Telugu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), YSR Congress (YSRC), CPI, BJP, Lok Satta and MIM, took part in the meeting. S.K. Joshi and Adityanath Das, Principal Secretaries, Irrigation, were present.
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Briefing reporters, Major Irrigation Minister P. Sudarshan Reddy said the supervisory committee should see that Maharashtra used only 2.74 tmcft through Babli as stipulated by the court. This was within the 60 tmcft allocation made to that State under the tribunal award.
He said AP would ascertain whether Maharashtra was utilising the Godavari waters in excess of its allocation and, if so, seek action by the Centre and the Court.
It would seek data from Maharashtra project-wise for this purpose.
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The leaders wanted the office of the supervisory committee to be located at Sriramsagar project site with provision for payment of salaries to its staff by AP also.
T. Nageswara Rao, E. Dayakar Rao (both TDP) and B. Vinod Kumar, R. Vidyasagar Rao (TRS) contended that Jalayagnam projects would suffer if the committee was not armed with adequate powers.
K. Narayana, Chada Venkat Reddy (CPI), K. Mahender Reddy (YSRC), S. V. Seshagiri Rao (BJP), V. Lakshman Balaji (Lok Satta) expressed similar views.