VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh government filed a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court contending that the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) “cannot be considered” for declaration as a national project as it is “prejudicial” to the interests of inhabitants or farmers of the State. The Telangana government has sent several representations to the Centre seeking national project status for Kaleshwaram project.
According to the additional counter affidavit, which contains replies to the contentions raised by the Telangana government in an earlier affidavit, filed by the AP government in the matter related to the petition filed by former MLC P Sudhakar Reddy, it was contended that the neighbouring State took up KLIP in the name of re-engineering. It also noted that besides KLIP, the TS government was also taking up new projects for utilising about 450 TMC of Godavari water, contrary to the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal and the AP Reorganisation Act.
It stated that if all such projects were allowed, Polavaram irrigation project, the lifeline of Andhra Pradesh, and established utilisations under Dowleswaram Barrage on Godavari would be ‘severely affected’.
"The State of Andhra Pradesh in view of the seriousness of the matter has raised several objections before the Central government requesting to place this matter before the Apex Council as per Section 84(3) of the AP Reorganisation Act. However, the said meeting has not yet been convened and on the other hand, the Central Water Commission (CWC) recorded a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) clearance on June 6, 2018, on which the State of Andhra Pradesh communicated its objections on the consideration of the Kaleshwaram project in detail. Despite all these, the State of Telangana is going ahead with the construction of the KLIP prejudicial to interests of inhabitants or farmers of the lower down projects of Andhra Pradesh and hence KLIP cannot be considered for declaration as national project," the affidavit filed in the name of L Premachandra Reddy, Member Secretary to Advisory Committee of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.
The State also contended that the request by Telangana for a fresh environmental and backwater impact due to Polavaram project was "not at all necessary and hence denied". The State argued that the project parameters remained unchanged from the time environmental clearance was given in 2005.
It further said that even though the spillway was designed with 44 gates with a discharge capacity of 20 lakh cusecs (at 130 ft dam height), 36 lakh cusecs at 140 ft and 46 lakh cusecs at 150 ft, which also satisfied GWDT Award.
It explained that four more gates were added after the CWC changed the BIS code, which are capable of discharging more than 20 lakh cusecs at 130 ft, 41 lakh cusecs at 140 ft and 54 lakh cusecs at 150 ft. "In fact the discharge capacity of the spillway has been increased which is to the benefit of all the upstream areas as this will reduce the backwater effect during the floods. In view of the above, the request of the Telangana government for a fresh environmental and backwater impact assessment of Polavaram Irrigation Project is not at all necessary and hence denied," the State replied in the additional counter affidavit.
The impact of natural phenomenon like Probable Maximum Flood (PMF), whose occurrence is not dependent on the construction of the irrigation project and whose probability of occurrence is very remote (in this case 1 in 10,000 years), is not studied/taken into consideration; especially in this case, where the life of the project itself is 100 years, the State contended.
Further, the State also stated that Telangana cannot raise any objection against Polavaram project as the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act states that the consent for the project was deemed to have been given by the successor neighbouring State.