As expected, severe differences cropped up between Telangana CM KCR and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Jagan over sharing of Krishna river water at the apex council meeting convened by the Union water resources ministry on Tuesday.
The meeting was held through zoom video conference method. While Jagan participated in the meeting from his official residence in New Delhi, KCR took part in it from his camp office at Pragati Bhavan in Hyderabad.
However, both the chief ministers presented their own arguments.
While Telangana chief minister strongly argued against the Central government’s interference in the execution of projects without making state-wise allocation of water, Jagan said the water allocation should be left to the discretion of the Centre.
KCR reportedly demanded that the Centre should not notify the jurisdiction of the inter-state projects without making project-wise allocations. But Jagan put up a counter argument stating that the Centres should notify the limits of water utilisation in each project.
While KCR demanded that Telangana should be entrusted with the responsibility of operation and control of both Nagarajunasagar and Srisailam projects, Jagan argued that both the operational control of these projects should be handed over to the Krishna River Management Board under the Union ministry.
Shekawat said as per the AP Reorganisation Act, the Krishna River Management Board should be shifted to Andhra Pradesh. This was strongly resisted by the Telangana chief minister.
Both the chief ministers, however, agreed to submit detailed project reports of the irrigation schemes being constructed or proposed to be constructed on Krishan river to the Centre, which would look into them before granting approval.
