River water disputes: TG govt ready for dialogue with AP

Hyderabad: The Telangana Cabinet will meet on June 24 to finalize an action plan to find an amicable solution to the snowballing inter-state row over the Bankacharla project through a dialogue with Andhra Pradesh government, while keeping its option to fight for the state's needs. During an interaction with media persons before leaving for Hyderabad from New Delhi on Friday evening, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said that he did not want to develop animosity with the neighbouring state.
He said he would prefer to resolve water disputes in a friendly atmosphere.
In the wake of rising river water disputes among southern states, particularly AP, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the Chief Minister said: 'Our policy is to continue good relations with all states and find a solution to the river water disputes with each state through talks only'.
Revanth Reddy took a broadside at former chief minister and BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao and T Harish Rao for politicizing the Banakacharla issue.
He said that the Banakacharla issue was the result of KCR and Harish Rao agreeing to AP lifting water from Godavari at the Apex Council meeting in 2016. The official meetings held between AP and Telangana CMs in 2019 also sowed the seeds of exploitation of Godavari water by the neighbouring state.
Revanth Reddy questioned the silence of the former chief minister KCR on the GOs issued by the AP government in 2016 and 2018 for Banakacharla.
The CM took a swipe also at Union Minister for Coal G Kishan Reddy for not coming forward to protect the interests of Telangana from the exploitation of Godavari and Krishna water by Andhra Pradesh. 'Kishan Reddy is tutor of KTR and KTR is playing a liaison officer role for the Union Minister,' he alleged.
Revanth Reddy criticized KCR for not irrigating even 50,000 acres by spending more than Rs 2 lakh crore on Kaleshwaram. The multi-crore Kaleshwaram project was left unused after the damages to the three barrages of Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla.
Further, the Chief Minister alleged that the Union government was indifferent towards Telangana in sanctioning the state's irrigation projects and allocating funds for them. He wondered why the Centre was proactive in releasing funds liberally to the Polavaram project, although Telangana had raised strong objections.
He sought to know the Centre's main intention in approving the Banakacharla project without water allocations.
'PM Narendra Modi needs the support of AP CM N Chandrababu Naidu to run the coalition government at the Centre. The BRS wanted to raise the water disputes to survive in Telangana politics', he said.

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