A meeting of the coordination committee of Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) convened here on Tuesday ended without making any headway on operationalisation of clauses of the gazette notifying its purview with one of the two member States, Telangana, staying away from it as informed indirectly on Monday.
Apart from Chairman of the board J. Chandrashekhar Iyer, Member Secretary B.P. Pandey, other Members, Chairman and Managing Director of AP-Genco B. Sreedhar, CMD of AP-Transco N. Srikanth, Engineers-in-Chief of Water Resources Department C. Narayana Reddy and R. Satish Kumar, representative of the Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS) attended the meeting.
On its part, Telangana has made its mind clear on Monday by addressing a letter to the GRMB Chairman to convene a full board meeting before holding the coordination committee meeting stating that there were several important issues to be discussed at the meeting for opinion and guidance of the board to go ahead with operationalisation of the purview.
Telangana ENC C. Muralidhar wrote a similar letter to Chairman of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) M.P. Singh to convene full board meeting before holding coordination panel meet.
It is understood from the authorities concerned that the board chairman had enquired about the status of funds to be transferred by the two member States as one-time deposit, ₹200 crore each, and also information about projects mentioned in the schedules of the gazette notification issued on July 15. Andhra Pradesh authorities informed the board that they would take the matter to their government’s notice.
Sources stated that the AP government was planning to move the MoJS on some issues including the need to de-list some projects from the schedules mentioned in the gazette notification.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr. Narayana Reddy said that the board had tried to elicit their views on going-ahead with the operationalisation of clauses of the notification on the purview. However, they had informed the board authorities that they had specific doubts over the basic infrastructure and procedures for implementation of the purview and want clarity on them.
There were certain issues to be decided at the level of the Chief Minister and only after that they could be more specific on views. Without mentioning the projects, he further stated that they also had some reservations over the inclusion of some projects in the schedules of the board’s purview The board authorities indicated that the full board meeting could be held next week.
