The Hindu : National : Krishna water tribunal discusses logistics

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 18, 2005

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Krishna water tribunal discusses logistics

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, FEB. 17. The Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II, (KWDT) chaired by Justice Brijesh Kumar, met informally today in the office of the erstwhile Task Force on Inter-Linking of Rivers. The Task Force's office has been allotted to the KWDT. The Tribunal has been set up to adjudicate the dispute between Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra on sharing the waters of the Krishna. The Judges of the Allahabad High Court, S.P. Srivastava, and the Kolkata High Court, D.K. Seth, are members of the Tribunal.

According to sources, the Tribunal met to work out the logistics. The Tribunal, notified last April under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, is yet to formulate the terms of reference on the issue. It is to submit its recommendations in three years.

The first KWDT had a provision for the setting up a second tribunal after 25 years, which ended in 2002-03.

Karnataka had raised the issue of the use of surplus waters in the Krishna basin by the riparian States, while Maharashtra had objected to the utilisation of waters by Andhra Pradesh in excess of its share allotted by the first Tribunal. It had also sought a reassessment of the availability of the Krishna waters and the redistribution of an equitable share to the three basin States.

Andhra Pradesh had alleged that the construction of the Alamatti dam, the Narayanpur dam and the Tunghabhadra dam by Karnataka violated the tribunal award and the Environmental Protection Act, 1986.

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