Pothireddypadu Main Agenda Of KCR, Chandrababu To Raise Palamuru, Dindi At Apex Council Meet  

Hyderabad: Even as the Union Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) sets the agenda for the September 21 meeting of the Apex Council, Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is going to focus all his argument on the Pothireddypadu water diversion at the meet.

Meanwhile, the Ministry finalized an official agenda with six points of discussion towards settling disputes over sharing of water resources between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

KCR along with his team is scheduled to leave for Delhi on Tuesday night. He met the Governor ESL Narasimhan on Monday and discussed the issues of the agenda finalized by the Ministry.

AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is also participating in the meet, is reportedly going to raise Palamuru and Dindi projects.

Both the Chief Ministers will attend the first meeting of the Apex Council formed under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, to discuss irrigation projects on Krishna and Godavari rivers, in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The focus of the meeting, however, is likely to be on deliberations over projects referred by the Supreme Court for resolution by the Apex Council comprising Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati as its chairperson, and Chief Ministers of AP and Telangana as its members.

The Supreme Court has referred two lift irrigation projects taken up by the Telangana Government in the Krishna Basin -- Palamuru Ranga Reddy and Dindi -- in a writ petition filed by a group of farmers led by Alla Venkata Gopalakrishna Rao from Andhra Pradesh in July this year, opposing the projects stating that they would impact the prospects of irrigation in their region.

Issues On The Agenda

In a communication sent on Monday to the two States among others, Senior Joint Commissioner in the MoWR Naresh Kumar said that the agenda would be to deliberate on the projects referred by the Supreme Court, working arrangement for sharing of river waters, transparent mechanism for measuring outflows and inflows at different locations and reservoirs, mechanism for replenishment and over or under drawl by the two States, principles of sharing of Godavari water diverted to Krishna and any other issue with the permission of the chair.

The Apex Council is the body set up by the MoWR under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act following bifurcation of combined AP into residuary Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to address issues that are not settled at the level of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari River Management Board (GRMB), also constituted under the bifurcation Act.

Besides the Chief Ministers, Ministers of Irrigation/Water Resources, Chief Secretaries, Secretaries of the Department, Engineers-in-Chief from both the States will attend the meeting.

Officials of the Central Water Commission, Secretary of MoWR, and Chairpersons of KRMB and GRMB would also be present at the meeting.