Andhra reportedly wants 76% of the disputed Krishna water. Telangana wants 70%. Someone is going to be disappointed.

Here is what one report says happened in Delhi on Thursday, 23 July 2026, and here is why you should read it with one eyebrow raised.

According to Namaste Telangana (ntnews.com), at a sitting of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II — the Justice Brijesh Kumar bench — the Andhra Pradesh government argued that it cannot run its Rayalaseema schemes on Penna-basin water alone, and therefore diverts Krishna water into them. On the strength of carry-over storage use at the Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs, the report says, AP proposed that the disputed Krishna share be split 76% to Andhra Pradesh and 24% to Telangana.

That is the entire load-bearing claim, and it rests on a single outlet. No independent report of Thursday's proceedings turned up, and Namaste Telangana names no AP counsel, minister or filing behind the 76:24 figure. So take the operative sentence as reported and unconfirmed: AP is said to have argued this. Not that it is established that it did.

The framework around the claim, by contrast, is solid. In October 2023 the Union Cabinet approved additional Terms of Reference for the tribunal under Section 3 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, to reallocate the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh's Krishna share between the two successor states on a project-wise basis. The Centre has since extended the tribunal's tenure to 31 July 2026 — which places Thursday's hearing among what could be its final sittings, a detail the report does not flag.

The two states' positions are, to put it plainly, nowhere near each other. Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has instructed officials to press for 70% of available Krishna water, on the argument that Telangana holds roughly 70% of the river's basin area in the two states. A 24%-for-Telangana proposal is not a negotiating gap; it is the mirror image of Telangana's own demand.

The 76:24 ratio is also not conjured from nowhere, and this is where care is needed. It is the actual utilisation split of the recent past: Telangana Today reports that in the last water year Telangana drew 242 TMC (24%) while AP drew 450 TMC (76%), largely through the Pothireddypadu head regulator and the Rayalaseema Lift Irrigation Scheme. "AP drew 76% last year" is a checkable usage figure. "AP has proposed 76:24 as the permanent allocation" is a claim about a filing that only one outlet reports. They are not the same statement, and only the first can be leaned on.

Now the argument worth making. The Rayalaseema projects named — Handri-Neeva, Galeru-Nagari and Telugu Ganga — draw from the Srisailam reservoir on the Krishna and carry water out into the Penna basin. Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi, the longest canal in Rayalaseema, was conceived to draw flood waters from Srisailam. That word — flood — is the point. Schemes historically justified to the tribunal as surplus and flood-water projects are, on this account, now the stated reason for a permanent dependable-water claim that would fix Telangana's share at a quarter. If AP is indeed making that case, the shift from "surplus" to "entitlement" is the thing the tribunal, and Telangana's counsel, ought to press it on.

On its own defence, the report says Telangana argued it uses at Tummilla the water it cannot draw at the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, and that the tribunal's earlier award already permitted the RDS right canal — for which KWDT-II allocated four TMC for construction in Kurnool district. The finer detail of that submission is not independently verifiable and should be read as Telangana's argument, not settled fact.

What this story needs and does not yet have: a named AP source or a document behind the 76:24 proposal, the tribunal's own response, and confirmation from anyone not writing in Telugu for a Telangana readership. Arguments are said to continue. When there is a second source, so will this.