Chalo Karnataka lands at RDS

BRS leaders have moved the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme fight to the source, inspecting hydraulic gates in Karnataka and warning that Telangana’s share on the Tungabhadra is being pinched upstream. The party says it will agitate till Mahabubnagar’s farmers get their due. According to a report on the launch, former ministers V. Srinivas Goud, C. Laxma Reddy and S. Niranjan Reddy led the “Chalo Karnataka” push; Reddy’s line was flat: there will be no compromise on Telangana’s water rights.

On the record, the entitlement exists. The Bachawat Tribunal put 15.9 TMC to the then Andhra Pradesh side against 1.2 TMC to Karnataka, and the Central Water Commission summarises it plainly as 15.90 TMC to be realised at the border. KRMB’s own RDS page carries the 15.9 TMC figure and an 87,500‑acre ayacut. What the flows look like year by year is exactly what needs publishing; the Jogulamba Gadwal district page says the left canal “hardly” delivers 8–10 TMC against entitlement but offers no dataset with it.

KRMB’s 2022–23 annual report, meanwhile, flags the RDS anicut for urgent strengthening and records a roadmap cleared for structural works — bureaucracy moving, water waiting. The BRS describes Karnataka and Andhra works around RDS as “unauthorised”; that is an allegation, and the legal status needs airing by the boards and the two governments.

The target here is not mysterious. It is the Congress government in Karnataka upstream and the TDP-run Andhra habit of treating a shared river like a private tap that need explaining to Telangana’s farmers. Neither has bothered to answer this fresh round — so the inspection, and the agitation, continue.