The Narendra Modi government at the Centre shocked Andhra Pradesh and Telangana government by issuing a ‘midnight gazette notification’ taking control of all the irrigation projects on Krishna and Godavari rivers.

The union jal shakti ministry issued a gazette notification after 12 midnight on Thursday.

The notification will come into effect from October 14.

AP and TS are engaged in a bitter war over sharing of Krishna water for the last 20 days. The TS is taking up hydel power generation at Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar, Pulichintala projects which AP is strongly opposing.

Both the States lodged complaints against each other with the Centre.

AP CM YS Jagan wrote letters to PM Modi twice against TS.

Against this backdrop, the Centre issued notification taking control of all the projects.

While the water row was on Krishna river, the Centre took control of all projects on Krishna and Godavari. The Centre will deploy CRPF forces on these projects.

The Centre brought all Krishna projects under the jurisdiction of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari projects under Godavari River Management Board (GRMB).

Now AP and TS governments have to seek permission of Centre and these boards to construct any new projects or generate hydel power.

For ongoing projects on these rivers without any approvals, both the state governments have to seek approvals within six months from the Centre by submitting all documents. If Centre rejects approvals for these ongoing projects, the States have to scrap these projects.

The AP government took up Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme on Krishna without any approvals while TS government took up several projects such as Palamur Rangareddy, Dindi etc without any approvals. Now the fate of these projects lie in the hands of Centre.