The meeting convened by the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) on September 1 to resolve the disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over river water sharing is expected to witness a lot of fireworks.
Telangana government, which was initially reluctant to attend the KRMB meeting in protest against the recent gazette notification by the Centre taking over all the projects on Krishna and Godavari rivers, has now decided to attend it to put forth its views strongly.
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao told a meeting of the irrigation department officials that they should put forth their strong arguments in the meeting about the rightful share of Telangana state in the Krishna River waters with authoritative information.
Telangana government has already written to KRMB demanding that the Krishna river water should be divided in the ratio of 50:50 between Telangana and Andhra.
Its argument is that most of the catchment areas of Krishna river is in Telangana but the state has not been able to utilise much due to lack of canal system.
Telangana is also opposing diversion of Krishna river to Tungabhadra or Pennar basin by the Andhra Pradesh government.
On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh, too, has strongly opposed Telangana demand for 50:50 share in Krishna waters.
It also wrote to the KRMB stating that Andhra Pradesh should get 70 per cent of the water allocation, as made by the tribunals, because of the larger command area in the state.
It is expected that Andhra Pradesh would also raise objections over construction of lift irrigation schemes like Palamuru-Ranga Reddy and Dindi schemes without the central government’s approval.
Against this backdrop, the KRMB meeting on September 1 is all set to be stormy, sources said.