Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy said that a delegation will meet Union minister for Jal Shakti in New Delhi on July 16 as part of the state government’s efforts to get all due permissions, funding for water projects. He added that the Congress government here will initiate a “big fight” for all pending Krishna river water projects with Centre.
Revanth Reddy also continued his attacks on his predecessor K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) and the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi, claiming that KCR ignored all pending Krishna water projects and “betrayed” the state on the issue of getting water allocations, funds and permissions to finish pending projects.
“Seeking to end a decade of injustice to the state on issue of allocations of water, and Central funding for projects in the state, the Telangana delegation would strongly put forth its point of views at the apex meeting. As records show, in the first and second apex committee meetings, the BRS government leaders including the-then CM KCR did not bring up these issues,” said a press release from the Telangana CM’s office on Monday, July 14.
Revanth Reddy also said that Telangana will also demand for its legally due share of waters from river Godavari for Telangana, and that state irrigation minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy has written a letter to Union Jal Shakti minister CR Patil on Monday, requesting him to resolve the long pending Telangana water sharing issue.
After its bifurcation from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, both states have been fighting for more water allocation from the Krishna and Godavari waters. More recently, Telangana has objected to the Bankacherla project that the current AP government has undertaken for which it require more water from the Krishna river.
The Telangana CM said that he will meet the union minister and request to immediately give clearance for the projects taken up on river Krishna river and provide financial assistance for the construction of projects along with water allocations.
He also said that injustice was done to Telangana in water allocations, blaming the BRS “for not fighting for Telangana’s fair share of waters for a decade” and also the state BJP state leaders for not taking the issue up with the Centre.
“During their decade, KCR government failed miserably in protecting the water rights of Telangana people. Revanth Reddy that the KCR government easily agreed to only 299 TMC of water for Telangana and 512 TMC to AP, which was a big betrayal. KCR also ignored all illegally constructed projects upstream of Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh and remained a mute spectator, even condoning the actions of the neightbouring state, when AP diverted Krishna waters arbitrarily,” added the release.
