In a bid to speed up the process of ongoing hearing over deciding the share of water for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the Krishna river, the Department of Water Resources in the Ministry of Jal Shakti has appointed Justice S. Talapatra of the High Court of Tripura as the Member of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) to fill the existing vacancy.
The vacancy in the tribunal was caused with the resignation of Justice B.P. Das, former Judge of the High Court of Odisha. The appointment of Justice Talapatra makes the composition of the tribunal complete with Chairman Justice Brijesh Kumar and another Member Justice Ram Mohan Reddy.
Meanwhile, the Centre has also extended the period of submission of report and decision by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal for a period of one year from August 1, 2020. Constituted in April 2004, the tribunal submitted its report on re-allocation of Krishna waters among the riparian States of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in December 2010 and another report in November 2013.
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However, after bifurcation of AP into residuary AP and Telangana in June 2014, the term of the tribunal was extended under the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act to decided the share of water among AP and Telangana with one year extension every year, based on the request from the tribunal to submit its report, a prerequisite to implement the KWDT-II report on water sharing.
