Almatti row 8212; Major parties rally behind AP

HYDERABAD, FEBRUARY 11: Leaders of all major political parties on Thursday solidly rallied behind the state government on the Almatti row ...

HYDERABAD, FEBRUARY 11: Leaders of all major political parties on Thursday solidly rallied behind the state government on the Almatti row and authorised it to formulate a stance on the Supreme Court full bench views to solve the river water dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

An all-party meeting convened by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here, discussed various legal and administrative issues involved in agreeing to the quot;compromise formulaquot; suggested by the apex court. However, the details of the deliberations were kept secret as the matter was before the court.

The Supreme Court on Feb 8 sought the opinions of the three riparian states 8211; Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra, on three issues: To increase the dam height to 519 meters, setting up of a Krishna River Valley Authority and and implementation of the scheme quot;Bquot; on surplus water of the Bachawat Award.

The scheme quot;Bquot; however, comes in to operation after the construction of necessary infrastructure and carry over reservoirs in the basin states. The Bachawat Award expires by May 2000, when the allocation of water among Maharashtra, Karnataka and AP can be reviewed afresh.

On the apex court8217;s suggestions, AP8217;s counsel K Parasaran argued that the scheme quot;Bquot; cannot be implemented now, as there was neither any consensus among the riparian states nor a law passed by the Parliament, the two requisites for distributing the surplus water.

Parasaran, however, did not spell out AP8217;s response to the Supreme Court8217;s suggestion for increasing the dam8217;s height up to 519 meters. While Karnataka was planning to raise the height to 524 meters, AP was insisting that it cannot go beyond 512 meters.

The all-party meeting is understood to have left the matter of dam8217;s height to the decision of experts and engineers. The meeting also discussed the reports of the chief ministers8217; committee set up by the Deve Gowda government in 1997, which too favoured the height up to 519 meters.

Story continues below this ad

Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman K Rosaiah, BJP legislature party leader N Indrasena Reddy, CPM state secretary B V Raghavulu and MIM leader in the Assembly Asaduddin Owaisi, Telugu Desam leaders R Chandrasekhar Reddy and S M Lal Jan Basha attended the meeting.

Speaking to newsmen later, the Opposition leaders, however, refused to comment on the Almatti issue on the ground that it was pending with the Supreme Court and that any remarks would amount to contempt.

Rosaiah said that in the backdrop of the quot;compromise formulaquot; suggested by the apex court, the chief minister convened the meeting to take leaders of all political parties into confidence and appraised them of the present status of the case.