The recent arrest of TDP leader N. Chandrababu Naidu and his party legislators by the Maharashtra police as they marched toward the controversial Babli barrage has brought to the fore the potential for conflict — and possible violence — between states. Even if Mr Naidu’s exertions are traced to political exigencies ahead of byelections to 12 Assembly seats in Telangana, the region affected by the Babli barrage, the issue will not go away. It is time the Centre took a strategic view of the management of all river waters in the country, and helped resolve disputes. Efforts of contending states themselves do not appear to bring satisfaction. It is time for a national agency to redress water-related disputes, duly sanctioned by Parliament and endorsed by state legislatures, to be established.
Andhra Pradesh’s objection is to the location of the Babli barrage — it falls within the “foreshore”, the water storage area, of the Sriramsagar project. This makes the Babli barrage a project of one state lying within a project zone of another. Andhra Pradesh contends that the barrage will utilise water belonging to the Sriramsagar dam. The dam was designed to hold 122 tmc of water, but the volume has come down to 70 tmc due to silting. Indeed, the dam has never served the total area it was meant to irrigate. That makes every litre of water crucial for the typically dry districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal and Nalgonda in the Telangana region. While water is always an emotive question, the recent agitation for statehood for the region and the July 27 byelections lend an edge to the issue. Mr Naidu was chief minister when Maharashtra conceived the Babli barrage in 2002-03. Work on it began in September 2004, months after the Congress government led by the late Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy commenced its first term. This has given Mr Naidu reason to allege that the Congress government has done little to stop Maharashtra. Nevertheless, the timing of Mr Naidu’s march to Babli is curious. It came a day after the AP Assembly heard an inconclusive short duration discussion lasting six days on the barrage. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to hear an all-party delegation from the state on July 23. The Supreme Court, which had passed an interim order preventing Maharashtra from installing gates on the barrage, is to hear the matter in August. Is Mr Naidu, then, working hard to come off as a good boy in Telangana where he is seen as someone trying to block statehood for the region?
Compared to many others, the Babli dispute can be deemed to be of recent origin. The matter reached the Supreme Court only in 2006. Nevertheless, the potential for incitement to violence should never be estimated, if we are to take a lesson from the 120-year-old Tamil Nadu-Karnataka Cauvery dispute, or the contention as among several north Indian states in the context of Sutlej and Yamuna waters, to take but two examples. It has been seen that one state or another reneges on agreements to share river waters in a year when water availability is reduced. It is this, and the need to protect the interests of lower riparian states, that lends urgency to the demand for a standing mechanism to clear water disputes. The body should concern itself with relatively large-sized dams as well as minor irrigation projects of the Babli barrage type if they feed off shared rivers. The alternative to let water-related disputes fester is to mar harmonious relations that can cast a shadow not only on Centre-state relations but also the integrity of the country. The leading natural resources of the country cannot be permitted to become a cause for intermittent unrest.