Karnataka to explain stand on Chitravathi to President, PM

Responding to Andhra Pradesh's protestations, Karnataka would explain its stand on the Chitravathi project to President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Water Resources Minister H K Patil said today.

Responding to Andhra Pradesh's protestations, Karnataka would explain its stand on the Chitravathi project to President A P J Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Water Resources Minister H K Patil said on Wednesday.

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Patil told reporters here that the state would write a letter to Kalam and Vajpayee, whom a delegation of Andhra Pradesh MPs had approached recently to protest the project across the Chitravathi and sought their intervention.

He said it was not wise on the part of Andhra Pradesh to provoke the state unnecessarily on the issue. At a meeting attended by representatives of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the Central Water Commission had given a no-objection certificate to the project in 2001, he said.

To a query, he ruled out taking a delegation to the Centre at this juncture.

Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are locked in a verbal war on the Chitravathi issue for the last few weeks. Andhra Pradesh has accused Karnataka of taking up the project illegally, thereby impinging upon its interests.

Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna had yesterday accused Andhra Pradesh of playing the "politics of water" and said law would take its own course if TDP held a protest at the project site on June six, which was however subsequently called off.