As expected, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao is not attending the meeting of the Southern Zonal Council convened by the central government in Tirupati on Sunday.
The State Government is represented by Home Minister Mohd. The meeting will be headed by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar Mahmood Ali and a delegation of officials headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The 29th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council is being held after a long gap as the meeting scheduled for March 4 was postponed in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and also due to unavailability of Shri Amit Shah.
As per the tentative agenda finalized for the meeting, the frontage of Srisailam reservoir is expected to be one of the major issues related to the irrigation projects Palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation System (PRLIS) and Nakkalagandi LIS taken up by the state of Telangana. Will come for discussion.
The Karnataka government has taken its PRLIS and Nakkalgandi LIS against Telangana for lifting water from the frontline of the Srisailam project.
The Government of Karnataka is emphasizing that neither Andhra Pradesh nor Telangana (assuming that the State of Telangana is entitled to use the remaining/surplus water) needs to use the remaining/surplus water on a “large scale”. There was no right to build “permanent construction of projects”. Krishna is flowing.
This was because the said balance/surplus water is liable for allocation to the Upper States – Karnataka and Maharashtra under clause-XVI of the final order of KWDT-II (dated 29th November, 2013).
agenda note
“KRMB reiterates the instructions of Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) to Telangana State to conclude that till DPR is submitted and evaluated by KRMB, CWC and approved by Apex Council,” the agenda notes said.
In addition, the meeting is likely to discuss the dues of ₹ 6,015 crore to be paid by Telangana’s power utilities to Andhra Pradesh for the cost of electricity supplied by Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation of the state. Other issues on the agenda discuss about speedy investigation of cases of sexual offenses/rape against women and children – limit of adherence to two months time limit for investigation and inquiry/trial as per ITSSO portal.
The 28th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council was held on 18th September, 2018 in Bengaluru, in which 22 out of the 27 agenda items were resolved. Apart from the remaining 5 agenda items, 43 new items were received by the SZC for consideration.