Several people’s organisations and Rayalaseema rights movement leaders organised a dharna at Tower Clock Centre in the city on Saturday seeking Rayalaseema’s due as per the provisions of the Sribagh agreement arrived at between Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra on November 16, 1937.
Organisation for the Protection of Democratic Rights State president Mayakunta Srinivasulu, while spearheading the dharna on the 82nd anniversary of the pact, said the allocation of river water was a key issue that remained unresolved despite an agreement that Rayalaseema would get equal quantum and priority in allocation of irrigation water.
Water sharing
As per the original provisions of the pact, the number of MLAs in five Rayalaseema districts (including Nellore) should be equal to that of Coastal Andhra region, but even that had not been implemented. Even as per the Section 84 of the A.P. Bifurcation Act, water had to be allocated to all the projects that were under construction at that time, but even that had not been fulfilled, he said.
On October 1, 1953, Andhra State came into existence and Kurnool became the capital of the new State, under the terms of the Sribagh pact between the leaders of Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema. The agreement was that if the High Court was set up in Coastal Andhra, capital would be in Rayalaseema, but people here had been betrayed and both capital and High Court had been set up there, he observed.
