New Delhi
, Jul 27 : Telugu Desam chief and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu today threatened to launch an anti-Babhli barrage agitation if the Government failed to resolve the issue by August 10.

Mr Naidu, who is in the national capital for the past few days after he was arrested by the Mahrashtra Government for launching an agitation against the Babhli construction in the upper reaches of Godavari river, told newspersons here that the Centre should find a solution to the Babhli barrange which was "illegal".

’’If the Government fails to find a solution, the TDP would formalise its nature of agitation as the by-elections in the Telangana region are over,’’ he said.

He said during his interactions with the Prime Minister yesterday, he had not got any definite or positive response on resolving the Babhli issue and had not even called for a meeting of political parties.

The Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh Government too had not acted with alacrity and if they had approached the Supreme Court in time, the situation would have been different, he said.

’’Even now the Centre can ask Maharashtra to dismantle its gate and Maharashtra should realise that India
was a federal union and a citizen did not need any passport or visa to traverse across the country. If Babli is legal as claimed by Mahrasthra, why should it hide and why is the state afraid to let me visit the construction site,’’ Mr Naidu questioned.

He condemned the Maharashtra Police’s lathi charge on the TDP workers near the Maharashtra border while on their way to Babhli project.

Citing the rationale behind the TDP launching the agitation, Mr Naidu said it went against the sprit of agreement signed by the Chief Ministers of AP and Maharashtra in 1975 based on the Godavari water Dispute Tribunal which allowed all water above Paithan dam and up to Siddeshwar dam on the Godavari to be used by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh could draw more than 60 TMC of water below Paithan dam and Siddeshwar dam site.

He said Babhli was a project on the foreshore or submerged areas of Sri Ram Sagar Project and the project was coming up without necessary clearances and consent from Andhra Pradesh. The barrage has a capacity of 2.74 TMC but could intercept 20 feet depth of live storage of Sri Rama Sagar depriving the lower riparian state of up to 65 TMC of water.

Maharashtra was also constructing 13 other projects with the capacity of storing 14 TMC water but in actuality these were capable of denying AP up to 100-120 TMC of water, he claimed.

--UNI

source:N.kerala