Senior Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader and former minister T Harish Rao on Sunday, May 25, criticised the Andhra Pradesh government's proposed Godavari-Banakacherla link project. He accused the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) led government in Andhra Pradesh of moving ahead without securing the necessary approvals to divert 200 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) of Godavari river water, calling it a permanent loss and injustice to Telangana.
Harish Rao pointed out that water was available downstream, as Telangana had not yet utilised its full allocation of 959 tmc ft granted by the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal. He demanded that the Telangana government convene a special Assembly session to pass a resolution opposing the project and also approach the Supreme Court to seek justice.
He also criticised Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for failing to raise the issue during the recent NITI Aayog meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 24. He questioned the silence of Congress and BJP MPs from Telangana as Andhra Pradesh diverts water from the state.
He further asked why the Union government granted national project status to Andhra Pradesh’s Polavaram project but has not extended the same to Telangana’s Kaleshwaram and other key irrigation initiatives. “The Union is providing financial support of up to Rs 60,000 crore for projects in Andhra Pradesh. Has even a single rupee been allocated for Telangana’s projects?” he asked.
Harish dismissed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s claim that the Godavari has surplus water, and asked why Naidu had opposed water allocations to the Kaleshwaram and Sita Rama projects back in 2018 if that were the case.
He said that the central agencies like the Central Water Commission (CWC) had approved these projects, explaining that they are not entirely new but continuations of older ones—Kaleshwaram replacing the Pranahita-Chevella project, Bhakta Ramadasu designed to supply water to tail-end areas of the Sriram Sagar project, and Sita Rama replacing the Indira Sagar and Rajiv Sagar projects.