Hyderabad: The Telangana government has approached the Supreme Court over the Rayalaseema Lift irrigation scheme headed by the Andhra Pradesh government.
The government has sought the apex court to cancel the Rayalseema Lift irrigation project orders and asked it to stop the tender process. The AP government has planned to utilise the additional water of River Krishan from the Srisalam Reservoir backwater through Rayalaseema Upliftment Scheme. It wants to start the project as early as possible.
The AP government, which had earlier issued orders in this regard, has started the tender process. However, the Telangana government had earlier complained to the Krishna River Management Board in this regard and feared that if the AP government build the Rayalaseema Upliftment Scheme, it would be a grave injustice to Telangana including its Ranga Reddy project. Similarly, its other areas would also be affected. Hearing the petition of the Telangana Government, the Krishna Board has directed the Andhra Pradesh Government to stop undertaking any new project without the prior approval of the Apex Council.
The Union Ministry of Water Resources has proposed to hold an apex council meeting on Wednesday. However, Chief Minister KCR made it clear that he couldn’t attend the meeting as he has pre-arranged programs. It may be recalled that the K.Chander Shekar Rao headed TRS government has decided to approach the apex court against the tender process of the Andhra Pradesh government in a review meet and wanted to stop the initiatives of the neighboring state.
The principal opposition of the state Congress had yesterday criticized the state government on this issue. State Party President captain Uttam Kumar Reddy has written an open letter to the KCR and asked him to stop the neighboring state to execute the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Project. He claimed that the project was illegal and the neighboring government had no right to divert water from the Krishna basin to the Pennar basin.
