Bangalore: Stepping in the raging row between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka over the Chitravathi issue, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on June 12 expressed concern over the project, prompting state Chief Minister S M Krishna to invite a Central Water Commission (CWC) technical committee to visit the spot on June 14.

"The Prime Minister expressed concern regarding the project", Karnataka Information Minister Kagodu Thimappa told reporters after a Cabinet meeting in Bangalore on June 12 but categorically ruled out stopping the project. Work will not stop," he said.

He said following Vajpayee's concern, Krishna immediately made an offer that the CWC committee should visit the project and added that it would be visiting the project site in Kolar district on June14.

Krishna told Vajpayee that the state was constructing the barrage across Chitravathi only for drinking water purpose, Thimappa said. Asked if by his intervention Vajpayee had expressed concern for Andhra Pradesh, he said, "anybody can interpret that. They (Telugu Desam and NDA) are partners".

To a query on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's offer to hold talks with Krishna on pending issues between the two states if Karnataka stopped work on the Chitravathi project, Thimappa said, "It is overruled. We will not stop (the work)".

Vajpayee's intervention comes about a fortnight after a delegation of Andhra Pradesh MPs met him and President A P J Abdul Kalam to protest against the project which they said impinged upon their rights by affecting the water flow into Anantpur and Cuddapah districts and to seek their intervention.

Karnataka has dismissed Andhra Pradesh's charge that it was using the water for irrigation purpose and been repeatedly maintaining that the project was meant only to serve the drinking water needs of over 100 villages and two towns in the parched Kolar district.

Both states have been sniping at each other for the last few weeks on the issue, which had also led to tension in the border areas of the districts Kolar in Karnataka and Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh.

Ruling Congress in Karnataka had held a massive rally at Bagepalli in Kolar district last week ostensibly to counter the protest organised by Telugu Desam in Anantpur district the next day.

PTI