Karnataka to 'pressurise' centre to notify Krishna Tribunal award: CM Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said that the government will demand the Centre to issue a gazette notification for the award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2, at a meeting called by the Union Jal Shakti Minister C R Patil next week.

This will facilitate the use of waters allocated to the state and allow for an increase in the height of the Almatti dam, Siddharamaiah added.

He said that the state government will assert in the meeting that it will raise the dam height to 524 meters as there is no interim order by the Supreme Court.

The Jal Shakti Minister will chair a meeting on May 7 with the water resources ministers of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana to discuss the report-cum-award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2.

The CM chaired a meeting with Deputy Chief Minister and Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, along with other ministers, legal experts, and officials, to decide on the state government's stance.

"Ahead of May 7 meeting, we consulted with the legal team to discuss the state’s position. Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-2 order was out on December 30, 2010, and subsequent orders in 2013. Yet, the central government has not issued the notification," Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters after the consultation, he noted that he and Shivakumar had met the central minister regarding this matter.

"The Union Minister has now called a meeting, and in that meeting, we will demand that the notification be issued immediately. The second tribunal order allocated 173 TMC of water for use, and to store and utilise this amount of water, the dam height must be increased from 519 meters to 524 meters. For this, the gazette notification must happen," he said.

Noting that Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which were divided in 2014, had filed an application stating that the dam height cannot be increased without the gazette notification, the CM said. "They may divide the water allocated to them among themselves, but we must utilise the water allocated to us," he added.

"We will demand that the gazette notification be issued. We have already made this demand, and we will reiterate it at the meeting. Furthermore, we will clearly state that, in the absence of an interim order by the Supreme Court, we will increase the dam height to 524 meters," he added.

Expressing happiness over the Union Minister’s call for the meeting regarding the notification of the tribunal award, Shivakumar said, "We have already wasted 15 years since the tribunal award, so we are demanding and appealing to the central government and courts to issue the gazette notification because the cost of construction is increasing every year, and water is being wasted."

"We are pressuring the central government. I hope they understand. We appeal to the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra on this issue, as no one will be affected," he added.

Shivakumar said an all-party meeting will be convened after the May 7 meeting with C R Patil.