Telangana and Maharashtra sign the ‘historic’ Godavari water-sharing pact today

This will be historic for Telangana and Maharashtra. The chief ministers of both the states will sign the Godavari water sharing agreement today. Under the agreement, three irrigation projects –Tummidihatti, Medigadda (Kaleswaram) and Chanaka–Korata — will be constructed in the Godavari river basin and along its two tributaries Penganga and Pranahita.

The process towards reaching today’s agreement was started on March 8, when the two states signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Maharashtra and the then undivided state of Andhra Pradesh had been attempting to come to an understanding on Godavari river water since 1975.

The project once finished will irrigate 16.4 lakh acres in Telangana and over 50,000 acres in the tribal areas of Maharashtra

However, there are environmental concerns surrounding the projects. All the three projects are altered versions of Dr BR Ambedkar Pranahitha Chevella Sujala Sravanthi Project, known as Pranahita Chevella project. This project has “serious design faults”, according to a Standing Committee on Water Resources report, which was submitted in the 16th Lok Sabha in December last year.