With the inter river water dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana showing no signs of abating, Andhra Pradesh has decided to move to Supreme Court, highly placed sources in the government have said.
Sources confirmed that the government was moving ahead to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court, to urge the apex court to pass directions notifying all the major irrigation projects on inter-State rivers as National Projects and hand over the responsibility of guarding the projects to central paramilitary forces.
The petition would also urge the court to suspend the GO issued by Telangana giving nod for drawing water for power generation from major irrigation projects and urge for directions to be given to Centre for fixing the guidelines of Krishna River Management Board, said sources.
“The Telangana government is using every means to crush the aspirations of farmers in Andhra Pradesh and in fact, resorting to blatant violation of human rights by forcing the release of an enormous amount of water into the sea,” said a senior government official.
Senior irrigation officials in the government have been closeted for over three days finalising the contents of the writ petition, pleading the Supreme Court that proper directions should be given to the Centre to recognise all the reservoirs and the power generation plants as national treasure and hand over the responsibility of manning them to central paramilitary forces.
“The tribunals and courts have made it clear the allocations made to different States, but the Supreme Court’s guidelines are necessary to implement them. We are witnessing these situations where upper riparian States have been indiscriminately drawing water and constructing new projects or expanding the existing projects and only a Supreme Court order can set the things in order. The Bachawat award had also made it clear that priority would be given to using water for drinking and irrigation needs but some states are flouting the orders. Such violations would only undermine the food security of the state and the country as well,’’ said sources.
