Centre calls meeting of Bansagar Control Board

Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti has called a meeting of Bansagar Control Board (BCB) in the wake of differences between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh over release of water from Bansagar dam.

A release from the ministry said on Friday the Uttar Pradesh government has sent a communication to the chairman of the Central Water Commission, requesting that suitable directions may be issued to Madhya Pradesh to release 2,000 cusecs of water for two months from Bansagar dam into Sone river "against the share of the state i.e. one million acre-feet from Bansagar dam as per Bansagar Agreement 1973".

The Uttar Pradesh government also said an acute crisis of drinking and irrigation water has arisen Sonbhadra and Mirzapur districts due to severe hot weather and scarcity of rains.

It said local ponds had gone dry and water table had reached an "alarming low level".

The release said the Madhya Pradesh government has refused to release the water saying that Uttar Pradesh has not agreed to share operation and maintenance expenses of Bansagar dam and "hence they have not stored the due share of water of Uttar Pradesh in Bansagar dam."

It said the Uttar Pradesh government has refuted this claim of Madhya Pradesh.

The BCB was set up following Bansagar agreement reached between the governments of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in 1973 for sharing the waters of Sone and the cost of dam.

Chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Madhya Pradesh's irrigation minister are the members of the BCB.