Telangana Retired Engineers Association (TREA) has requested Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to move the Centre at the earliest pressing for referring Section-3 (Inter-State River Water Disputes Act) complaints of Telangana to the existing Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-II) against exemption given by the Ministry of Jal Shakti to four unapproved projects of Andhra Pradesh, based on surplus water and outside the Basin.
In a detailed letter addressed to the Chief Minister on Thursday, president of the association G. Damodar Reddy, secretary M. Shyam Prasad Reddy, two other functionaries B. Ananta Ramloo and P. Venkat Rama Rao said there was a need for all political parties in the State including the TRS Government to take steps to move the Centre without delay since the livelihood of millions of farmers within the basin is involved.
In its notification issued on July 27 this year, the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) has exempted four projects of AP – Handri-Niva, Telugu Ganga, Galeru-Nagari and Veligonda – and two projects of Telangana Kalwakurthy and Nettempadu for going through the process of seeking approvals for continuing their works in progress. While all the four projects of AP are outside the Krishna basin, the two projects of Telangana are within the basin but all of them are based on surplus water.
Earlier, at the second meeting of Apex Council with Union Minister of Jal Shakti and Chief Ministers of the two Members States as its members held on October 6, 2020 it was clarified that any irrigation project which has not been techno-economically approved by the Central Water commission and accepted by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Department of Water Resources shall be considered as new project, irrespective of the fact whether it was conceived before or after bifurcation of the erstwhile AP.
The MoJS notification of July 27 stated that the provision of Clauses (f) and (g) of the notification on the jurisdiction of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) shall not apply to the six projects as Clause (f) says that “projects shall cease to operate if approvals are not obtained as per the bifurcation Act within one year” and Clause (g) says that the members States “shall completed the unapproved projects within one year”.
The TREA has stated that the allocation of inter-state river water is the domain of tribunals and no other authority including the Government of India has the right to take a contrary view.
