The national status accorded to the Upper Bhadra project in Karnataka by the Central government and the substantial budgetary allocation for the project in the Union Budget will sound the death knell for Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh, intellectuals and the academic fraternity here have said.
“According national status of a project with no legal sanctity is against the federal spirit of the Constitution. The BJP-led Central government has done irreparable damage to the Rayalaseema region downstream,” Rayalaseema Intellectual Forum coordinator M. Purushotham Reddy told the media here.
“The lift irrigation project was designed in 2008 to store 42 tmc ft of water, to which the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-1) declined allocation under the Bachawat Award. However, the KWDT-2 allocated 9 tmc ft of water in 2010, which again was struck down by the Supreme Court in favour of Andhra Pradesh,” Mr. Reddy explained.
Despite the stay order of the Supreme Court and the objections raised by the riparian States, the Centre had not only granted the forest clearance and expansion under stage-II to the project in 2017, but also paid no heed to the objections raised by Andhra Pradesh in 2019, 2021 and 2022, he alleged.
The forum flayed the Centre for allocating ₹5,300 crore by recognising the Upper Bhadra as a national project, based on the recommendations made by the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti to allocate ₹16,125 crore to the project.
G. Jayachandra Reddy, a retired professor of Sri Venkateswara University, expressed concern that the move could distance the Tungabhadra river from the ‘parched throats’ of Rayalaseema, which has already lost control over the Krishna river.
He squarely blamed the successive governments for not completing the storage projects in tune with the allocation. “Construction of this unauthorised project upstream will directly affect the Galeru Nagari, Handri Neeva, Telugu Ganga and SRBC projects in Andhra Pradesh,” said Mr. Reddy.
The forum appealed to the Members of Parliament from the Rayalaseema region to fight against the Centre’s ‘unilateral stand taken against the interests of Andhra Pradesh and in favour of Karnataka’, besides demanding the YSRCP government in State to lead an all-party delegation to Delhi.
