THE RIVER WATER WARS
On July 16, the bitter row between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over sharing Krishna waters—tapping it for irrigation and hydro power— entered a new phase with the Union government’s Jal Shakti ministry ordering that from mid-October the management and control of irrigation projects on the Krishna and Godavari rivers will vest with the respective river management boards and not the states. The notification has come not a day too soon. It has been seven years since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, to carve out Telangana, but how the river waters will be managed and shared between the two Telugu states has remained unresolved.
Beginning October 14, 36 projects in the Krishna basin and 71 in the Godavari basin will come under the control of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB), both set up in 2014 for the administration, regulation, maintenance and operation of the projects in the two river basins. Both the states have been asked to deposit Rs 200 crore each with the boards every year to cover operational and maintenance costs.
While Andhra Pradesh has welcomed the move, Telangana is not so pleased and might challenge it. Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) wanted the Centre to determine its fair share in the Krishna waters before bringing the projects under the control of the boards. Telangana has been drawing water for irrigation from the Srisailam Left Bank Canal project on the Krishna, which falls on the state’s border with Andhra Pradesh. The latter, in turn, has been developing the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme to draw water from the Krishna’s right bank canal in spite of the KRMB asking both states to stop. Neither state secured the necessary permissions and approvals before launching their irrigation projects in the two river basins.
The Jal Shakti ministry has asked both to cease all work immediately and get the mandatory clearances for both completed and ongoing projects within six months. It has also cautioned the states against going ahead with any projects unless approved by the KRMB, GRMB, the Central Water Commission and other agencies.
While both states have about a dozen unapproved projects each, Andhra Pradesh has submitted the detailed project reports of five projects on the Krishna and two on the Godavari
to the respective management boards. Telangana, on the other hand, has submitted none but has gone ahead and launched projects. The state is heavily dependent on loans for irrigation projects and has formed separate corporations to secure loans and negotiate loan agreements with a consortium of banks. Now, with the Centre declaring Telangana’s projects as “unapproved”, the banks have conveyed to the state that they cannot lend to projects with approvals pending. Power Finance Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation, besides several commercial banks, are among the lenders for these irrigation projects.
Telangana is naturally peeved and believes the Centre’s latest notification is yet another assault on the state’s remit and federalism. This is despite the fact KRMB and GRMB were constituted by the Union government as early as in 2014 in consonance with the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act. From October onwards, any activity on the Krishna and Godavari basins— irrigation and hydropower generation—will come under the direct control of the boards and, by extension, the Government of India.
“This is a risky river management experiment considering that the two boards do not cover the entire river basins,” says S.K. Joshi, a former chief secretary of Telangana who, for several years, was in charge of irrigation. According to Joshi, the management solution offered, at best, addresses the issue only partially and operations still depend on external conditions outside the ambit of the boards. Without determining the states’ share of waters from the inter-state rivers, it is uncertain how the boards will allocate water to various projects without an overall allocation to each state. The irony is that both KCR and his Andhra counterpart Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy were fighting over greater control, but instead of resolving issues, they both dug their heels in, which cost them dearly. “Their petty fight and their perception of the fair share of water got them into this situation. The Union government could not have asked for a better opportunity to push their bigger and broader agenda of bringing water into the Central list,” says Biksham
Gujja, an international expert on water policy.
Meanwhile, the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2021, that is likely to be approved by Parliament during the monsoon session, aims to delicense power supply. With that, the state governments will have no role whatsoever in electricity distribution in the coming years. And water may be next. Come October 14, in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, water will effectively become a Central subject. “The latest notifications will have far-reaching implications for the water sector, not just in these two states but in the entire country in a few years,” cautions Gujja. “Both states need to come together and agree upon a mutually respectable framework and present it to the Supreme Court jointly to get out of this situation.” For now, KCR and Jagan Reddy do not have a reconciliation formula and chances are slim that they will find one before the October 14 guillotine.
The Centre’s intervention in the inter-state river water dispute is also being seen as a way of making water a Central subject