HYDERABAD: The Ministry of Jal Shakti has decided to convene the Apex Council meeting shortly amid the fresh row over sharing of Krishna and Godavari waters between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
A communication to this effect was sent to the Irrigation departments of both the States on Thursday. The Department of Water Resources (Peninsular Rivers Wing) of the Ministry wrote letters indicating the Apex Council meeting.
The Under Secretary of the Union Government, AC Mallick, stated in the letters: “The next meeting of the Apex Council, constituted under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, is likely to be convened shortly under the chairmanship of Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat”. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his AP counterpart YS Jagan Mohan Reddy are members of the council.
“As per minutes of the meeting held on January 21, under the chairmanship of Secretary (WR,RD&GR) to discuss various issues of the KRMB and GRMB, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had agreed to submit the agenda points for the next meeting of the Apex Council. However, these are still awaited from both the States. It is, therefore, once again requested to send the agenda points for the next meeting...,” Mallick stated.
This will be the second meeting of the Apex Council; the first was held in September, 2016 when Uma Bharti was Union Water Resources Minister. The fresh row over the sharing of Krishna and Godavari waters between the sibling States started when the AP government recently issued GO 203 to enhance the capacity of the Pothireddypadu reservoir to divert 8 tmcft water daily from Srisailam to Rayalaseema.
Both AP and TS lodged complaints against each other with the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari River Management Board (GRMB). While TS termed AP’s plans to enhance the capacity of Pothireddypadu as a “new project”, the latter submitted a list of eight projects on the Krishna and nine new ones on the Godavari taken up by TS without permission from the agencies concerned.