Demanding that the Government safeguard the interests of the people on the issue of surplus Krishna water, Telugu Desam leaders are proposing to stage `Mahadharna’ at Prakasam barrage here on April 9.
The TDP leaders surveyed the venue near the barrage where they propose to stage a sit-in. The TDP leaders alleged that the state Government has failed to protect the rights of Andhra Pradesh farmers.
``If we don’t take up the issue seriously, the future generations will suffer for the Government's failure now and they will have to pay a heavy price. So we are staging this `Mahadharna’ keeping the future of Andhra Pradesh in mind,’’ said TDP leader Kodela Sivaprasad.
In the past four or five decades, Karnataka has been using its share of the Krishna waters to the full. This has left Andhra Pradesh with a thinner flow. The available water was further reduced after Maharashtra too began using its share of the river's waters. AP suffers from basin disadvantages like inevitable wastage, deficiency in depth, and variation in the flow. To compensate for this, the Bachawat Tribunal in 1972 had given AP exclusive rights to use the surplus water.
AP wants this condition to continue but the other two states are contesting this. Now the State government is engaged in a legal battle for getting its due share of surplus water.
``While we are fighting for the cause of the farmers, the ruling party legislators are leveling charges against us,’’ said Devineni Umamaheshwara Rao, theTDP convener.