KRMB meet likely after NGT hearing

July 9 meet postponed following TS aversion to agenda

The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), caught in the cross-fire between the two member States – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana — over the issue of river water share is planning to hold a full-board meeting next week at least to discuss the water sharing arrangement at least for the current water year. Postponement of the three-member committee meeting scheduled for July 9 had become inevitable on the day Telangana government wrote to the board seeking its postponement and requesting for a full-board meeting anytime after July 20. “There’s no point in having the meeting called for discussing the water sharing arrangement for the current year with one of the member-States making up its mind to stay away,” an official of the river board said on Friday. The board is likely to convene a meeting only after July 12, when the next hearing in the southern zone bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) is scheduled on the alleged violation of the tribunal order in case of Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (RLIS) of AP. The river board planned to visit the RLIS site for more than four months but could not do so due to AP’s refusal to allow the team.