BENGALURU, KARNATAKA — The long-running fight between states over the height of the Alamatti dam on the Krishna River has heated up again. On Friday, August 1, 2025, Karnataka strongly rejected Maharashtra’s concerns. M.B. Patil, the Minister of Industries for Karnataka, completely refuted Maharashtra’s assertion that raising the dam’s height will make floods worse in the Sangli and Kolhapur districts. He called their worries “politically motivated” and “baseless.”
Patil’s angry reaction is because Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wrote to Union Jal Shakti Minister C.R. Patil and asked the central government to stop Karnataka from raising the height of the Alamatti dam.
Rulings for decades Patil, the Karnataka Minister of Water Resources, said that the notion that Alamatti’s height could cause flooding has already been thoroughly looked at and rejected by several authorities.
Patil said, “Sangli and the areas around it in Maharashtra saw terrible floods in 1964, 1976, 1994, and 1997, all before the Alamatti dam was built.” This showed that there was no direct link between the project and earlier floods. He further said that the Supreme Court had clearly said in 2000 that Karnataka might enhance the dam’s height to 524.256 meters.
Patil also remembered that Maharashtra had brought this up again in 2005 in front of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-II). “The Tribunal’s extensive studies from 2010 and 2013 made it quite evident that the Alamatti dam did not cause floods in Sangli and Kolhapur. It even looked at how the Hipparagi dam might affect things in this case, but it didn’t find any reason to support Maharashtra’s argument. He said in a public statement, “No state has challenged the decision of the second Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal set up to look into these issues.”
He further said that even the old combined Andhra Pradesh had earlier objected raising Alamatti’s height because it would impair its share of water, but the Tribunal similarly turned down that objection.
Political Motive Alleged, Encroachments Floods blamed on
Patil directly said that Maharashtra’s current position is politically motivated. “Maharashtra’s current opposition is based on politics. “I have a full understanding of the issue because I was the Water Resources Minister for five years,” he said firmly.
Patil told the Maharashtra government to stop getting in the way of Karnataka’s growth and instead focus on problems within the state. He said that widespread encroachment on catchment areas in Sangli district was a more believable reason for flooding in the area and that he had a study on the topic. He told Maharashtra to focus on fixing these kinds of problems instead of getting in the way of Karnataka’s efforts to get its fair share of water.
The Karnataka Minister also said that he would give all the necessary papers to the present Karnataka Water Resources Minister and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar. This would make sure that Maharashtra’s objections are taken seriously. “Our state will respond appropriately to Maharashtra’s objections,” he said.
Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara told reporters that defending Karnataka’s interests was the most important thing. This backed up Patil’s position. He stressed that raising the Alamatti dam’s height is important for Karnataka to keep its share of water. He promised that the government would do everything it could to preserve the state’s interests and would make this clear to the Centre and the other states involved in the dispute.
The disagreement shows how hard it is for states in India to share river water, which is often made worse by politics.