Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday told President A P J Abdul Kalam that the allegations leveled by Andhra Pradesh regarding the Upper Tunga (water) project were baseless.
Andhra Pradesh had alleged that the Upper Tunga project taken up by Karnataka was illegal as its allocation of 12.34 thousand million cubic feet was not accrording to the considerations of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal.
Krishna, however, said in accordance with the 'legal position', the Karnataka government had distributed its share of 734 tmc of water to various projects and thus did not violate any provisions of the KWDT decision.
He alleged that on the contrary, Andhra Pradesh had taken up several projects in the Krishna basin 'to unilaterally commit surplus water by taking up permanent and large scale projects'.
He said the Telegu Ganga Project, Srisailam Left Bank Canal and Bhima Lift Irrigation were those among the projects taken up by Andhra Pradesh.
Besides, the state had also taken up the construction of the Veligonda Project, Handriniva Project and galerunagari project for the utilisation of surplus waters of the Krishna River, the Karnataka chief minister said.
He also drew the attention of the President to the Memoranda submitted to him by the Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu, in which the latter had expressed grievances against the projects of the Karnataka government, particularly the Paragodu Drinking Water Supply Scheme, saying that it violated a 1892 agreement.
Krishna said 'providing potable water becomes a major challenge and that is why, after weighing the pros and cons, we decided to build a small reservoir to hold 1,327 cusecs of water.
Contending that Karnataka had confirmed its participation in the meeting summoned by the Central Water Commission on June 25 to look into the dispute with Andhra, Krishna, however, expressed happiness that Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani had asked it to be postponed.
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