Govt to claim right over surplus Krishna water: Minister

Hyderabad, Aug 31 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Minister for Major Irrigation, Mr Ponnala Lakshmaiah today said the state would stake its claim over surplus water of river Krishna based on factors like equity in dependability, wastage, scarcity, drought-prone areas, flouride problem and salinity.

In a statement placed in the state Assembly today, Mr Lakshmaiah said the state would present its arguement before the new Tribunal under Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar.

The Minister said the Centre had constituted the New Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal comprising Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court as its Chairman and Mr Justice S P Srivastava sitting judge of the Allahabad High Court and Mr Justice D K Seth, sitting judge of Kolkata as members.

He said the new Tribunal commenced its proceedings in May 2005 and the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka had filed interlocutory applications against the Andhra Pradesh state, seeking to restrain it from proceeding with ongoing 11 projects on surplus water of Krishna.

Mr Lakshmaiah said the Andhra Pradesh government had also filed an interlocutory application to restrict storing of water in Almatti Dam and also to restrain construction of unauthorised projects by Maharashtra and Karnataka.

He said while Karnataka had been constructing 10 projects, Maharashtra was unauthorisedly constructing 48 projects on river Krishna.

He said the Tribunal directed the state government to file a fresh memo and accordingly a memo was filed on March two, 2006.

He maintained that the new Tribunal in its interim order observed that the state government's memo conformed to the provisions made in the order of the Tribunal.

The Minister informed the House that the state government in its memo had stated that it would not use the principle of prior appropriation to claim a right over surplus water to be utilized in the five projects- Veligonda, HNSSS, GNSS, Kalwakurty and Nettempadu.

He said the prayers made by all the three states to stop construction of the projects being constructed by other states had not been allowed by the Tribunal.

While disposing off the interim applications of the states the Tribunal observed that the three riparian states would not have any right by prior use.

He said the state government would consider seeking appropriate relief clarifications to safeguard the interests of the state as provided in the sub-section 3 of section 5 of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act of 1956.

UNI JRK RL GC2107