NO ACCORD YET ON SHARING OF RIVER WATERS

NEW DELHI, OCT. 6: A two-hour meeting here today between the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Mysore in the presence of the Prime Minister failed to produce any agreement on the sharing of the Krishna Godavari waters among the three states.

This is the second

meeting of the Chief Ministers at Mrs Indira Gandhi’s instance after both Maharashtra and Mysore had made strong objections to Andhra installing crest gates on the Nagarjunasagar Dam.

There was no report by the technical committee consisting of the Chief Engineers of the States constituted after the last

meeting, only the proceedings of the committee in which the respective Chief Engineers more or less restated their cases, were placed before the Chief Ministers meeting during the discussions. It is understood that Mr V. P. Naik and Mr Nijalingappa suggested that the whole dispute be referred to arbitration.

The meeting concluded with Mrs Indira Gandhi saying “We will meet again.”

The Chief Ministers considered the question of crest gates on the Nagarjunasagar. total flow in the Krishna river irrigation potential of the west flowing rivers in the Ratnagiri area and also diversion of Godavari waters into the

Krishna.

Since there was no reliable technical data about the total flow in the river before the claims of the three States could be reconciled, the Central Water and Power Commission officers promised to produce fairly accurate data after model studies at their Poona research station were completed.