The Union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday took two decisions related to water, clearing proposals to rework the water-sharing formula between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from the river Krishna and completing an irrigation project that will benefit Bihar and Jharkhand, information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur said.

The council of ministers signed off on new terms of reference for the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II to adjudicate on what should be the amount of water Telangana should be able to draw from the Krishna Basin.

The two states have been in a dispute over their shares, especially after the creation of Telangana as a separate state out of undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Under section 5(1) of the Inter State Water Dispute Act 1956, the Centre has called for the adjudication between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on the basis of new terms of reference.

The proposal was approved after the Union government sought legal opinion on the matter and following complaints raised by the Telangana government invoking provisions of the Act.

“Telangana had demanded that the matter should be looked into by the tribunal and decided to withdraw a plea before the Supreme Court,” Thakur said in a briefing.

An earlier demand by the Telangana government to revisit its water share had been rejected by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II, following which it had moved the Supreme Court. The state then made a new complaint to the Centre, Thakur said.

The tribunal was set up by the Centre on 2 April 2004. In 2014, after Telangana came into existence, the tenure of the tribunal was extended in accordance to section 89 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act (APRA), 2014.

Telangana first complained to the Jal Shakti ministry over water-sharing on July 14 2014. It also filed a plea in the Supreme Court in 2015. In 2018, the state made a second complaint to the Centre, asking it to refer its complaint to the tribunal by confining the scope of reference between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh only, according to records of the Union Jal Shakti ministry.

In a separate decision, the Cabinet also approved revised costs for the completion of the North Koel reservoir, a major irrigation project that will benefit Bihar and Jharkhand. The project will provide additional annual irrigation to 42,301 hectares in the four drought prone districts of Bihar and Jharkhand, a Cabinet statement read.