Water sharing: Will Telangana attend deferred meet on Tribunal Award?
The meeting, originally proposed on May 7, was postponed due to some unavoidable reasons.
According to information received here, the Jal Shakti minister will convene the meeting at 3 pm on June 18 in the national capital.
Ministers of stakeholder states — Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra — were invited to the meeting. If the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal Award is notified, it would provide immediate benefits to AP, Karnataka and Maharastra but not Telangana.
According to sources, Maharashtra and Karnataka have been exerting pressure on the Centre to notify the Tribunal Award.
It is not clear if the Telangana government is in favour of the consultation process initiated by the Jal Shakti Ministry and also notifying the Tribunal Award in the gazette.
'We will discuss it in the Cabinet and take a final decision on whether or not to attend the Jal Shakti meeting,' Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
It may be recalled that the Union government referred the Krishna water tribunal disputes between AP and Telangana to the existing Tribunal under Section 3 of the Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956, for the allocation of Krishna waters afresh between the two sibling states.
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