Krishna water dispute: Telangana BJP chief says deployment of troops "photo opportunity"

The Krishna water conflict is a "cooperation" between the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments to "loot" people, according to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Telangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay. Sanjay made a dig at both state governments on Tuesday, saying that the police deployment on their respective sides of the Pulichintala project along the border is only a "photo opportunity." Pulichintala Project, a multifunctional project in Suryapet, Telangana, serves irrigation, hydropower generation, and flood control.

"The two chief ministers in cooperation are trying to loot the people of Telugu states. They are deploying police just for photo ops. The main aim is to make them (people in Andhra and Telangana) fight, trigger emotions among people and grab votes out of it," Sanjay stated.

K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Chief Minister of Telangana, was also questioned by the BJP state president about agreeing to less water in the past. He further said that KCR had failed to attend meetings of the apex council. Police from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have deployed a huge number of officers to the Pulichintala project on their respective sides. Telangana began electricity generation at Pulichintala and released water into Andhra Pradesh, forcing the latter to drain the water into the Bay of Bengal via the Prakasam barrage near Vijayawada.

The central issue in the water dispute between the two states is the Andhra Pradesh government's claim that Telangana is drawing Krishna river water for hydel power generation from the Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar, and Pulichintala projects without acquiring permissions from the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

The Telangana government, on the other hand, says that KRMB has no right to cease electricity generation and that it is producing Hydel power in compliance with the legislation. At the time of the 2014 bifurcation, Telangana received 299 TMC of water from the Krishna River, whereas Andhra Pradesh received 511 TMC.

Krishna River Dispute: a brief history

The Krishna is an east-flowing river that begins in Maharashtra and flows through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh before merging into the Bay of Bengal.

For decades, a conflict over the sharing of Krishna waters has raged between the successor governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, beginning with the erstwhile Hyderabad and Mysore states and later continuing with Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh.

Under the Inter-State River Water Dispute Act, 1956, the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) was established in 1969 and published its report in 1973.

The report, which was published in 1976, divided the 2060 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of Krishna water at 75 per cent dependability into three parts: 560 TMC for Maharashtra, 700 TMC for Karnataka and 800 TMC for Andhra Pradesh. At the same time, it was stipulated that the KWDT order may be reviewed or revised by a competent authority or tribunal any time after May 31, 2000.

Afterwards, as new grievances arose between the states, the second KWDT was instituted in 2004. It delivered its report in 2010, which made allocations of the Krishna water at 65 per cent dependability and for surplus flows as follows: 81 TMC for Maharashtra, 177 TMC for Karnataka, and 190 TMC for Andhra Pradesh.