KCR, Jagan Mohan Reddy likely to meet in Andhra Pradesh in July over bifurcation, Godavari water issue

Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart YS Jagan Mohan Reddy are likely to meet in Amaravati mid July to sort out the bifurcation and river water sharing issues, Andhra Pradesh chief secretary LV Subrahmanyam said in Hyderabad on Sunday. The next meeting would be a follow up of the one that both chief ministers held on water sharing and other issues in Hyderabad last week. Engineers and officials of both governments were asked to come out with a preliminary report by 15 July on how they can utilise the available Godavari river water together. [caption id=“attachment_5185591” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Telanagana chief minister and TRS president K Chandrashekar Rao. PTI[/caption] “There was a tentative proposal (on the meeting of both the chief ministers). The report is supposed to come by 15 July. Both the chief ministers will study it. Afterwards, they will sit together and decide on how to take the issues forwards and the meeting will be in Andhra Pradesh this time,” Subrahmanyam said. After a meeting with Jagan on 28 June, Rao had said both governments decided to work together on unresolved issues concerning both states as there was a ‘qualitative change’ in relations between them. Jagan said both governments firmly resolved to utilise water from Godavari river to mitigate water problems in Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh and Palamuru Nalgonda areas in Telangana. A senior official, who attended the earlier meeting, said the basic idea was to take four TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of Godavari water to Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam projects, thereby providing water for both drinking and irrigation to several parts of both states. A day after the meeting between the chief ministers, senior officials led by chief secretaries from both sides discussed the division of assets following state bifurcation in 2014. They discussed the division of Andhra Pradesh Bhavan property, institutions mentioned in Schedule 9 and 10 of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, and division of other properties among other issues. They also discussed suggestions given by the chief ministers in their meeting on 28 June. Though five years have passed since the state bifurcation in 2014, several issues, including division of assets and liabilities between the states, have been pending due to lack of agreement over both the States. As per a white paper released by the Andhra Pradesh government in December 2017, assets worth Rs 1.97 lakh crore, related to government companies and corporations and state institutions, listed under Schedules IX and X of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 are yet to be distributed between the two states.