Hyderabad, January 01: The Andhra Pradesh government will file a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the award of the Justice Brijesh Kumar- led Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal.
In its petition, the government will question the panel’s rationale in distributing the Krishna’s surplus waters among Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.
On Friday, a high- level meeting of irrigation department officials as well as legal and irrigation experts discussed the panel’s verdict on the sharing of the Krishna’s waters.
It also discussed the repercussions of the decision to allow Karnataka to raise the height of the Almatti dam.
Andhra Pradesh had been staunchly opposed to this demand by Karnataka.
Andhra Pradesh irrigation minister P. Sudershan Reddy said the state government was “ not at all satisfied” with the verdict on sharing of surplus waters among the three riparian states.
“ We will first file an appeal before the tribunal within three months seeking justice. If we don’t get it, we will contemplate further legal recourse,” he said.
Revenue minister Raghuveera Reddy said the government would study the full report and consult irrigation experts, engineers and lawyers before taking any decision.
Opposition parties in the state blamed the verdict on the government’s inefficiency in putting up a strong argument before the tribunal.
Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu demanded that the state government take an- all party delegation to New Delhi and protest against the “ injustice done to Andhra Pradesh”. He said his party would take up a struggle to protect the state’s interests.
Naidu said the state had suffered because of the lack of a comprehensive national river water- sharing policy and the state government’s indifferent attitude.
On the other hand, the Krishna Delta Protection Committee expressed concern over the tribunal’s order allowing Karnataka to raise the height of Almatti dam from the present 519 metres to 524.256 metres. The committee said this would spell doom for the Krishna delta as Karnataka would impound an additional 130 thousand million cubic feet of water.
“ Unless the dam is filled to the brim, it would not release water to the downstream.
Except when there are floods, this impounding of water in Almatti would mean that the downstream projects in Andhra Pradesh would receive no irrigation supply at all during the Kharif season.
“ The entire cropping season would get adversely affected and the Krishna delta would turn into a desert,” the committee’s convenor and former minister Mandali Buddha Prasad said.
–Agencies