Bhubaneswar, Aug 01: Orissa and Andhra Pradesh have reached an agreement over the contentious issue of construction of spurs on the Vansadhara River. Under the agreement, Andhra Pradesh has agreed to demolish two of the spurs, official sources said today.

The agreement, reached after a joint inspection team, comprising officials of both states, visited the sites in Andhra Pradesh last Wednesday, further stipulated that construction of three of the spurs, already taken up, would not be completed. The team found that construction of 11 spurs had been taken up of which eight had been completed.

It was decided that six of the constructed spurs would not be touched, the sources said.

Orissa's chief engineer, B B Singh Samanta, and his AP counterpart, Y Lavkush Reddy, signed the agreement. The agreement further stipulated that neither state could construct spurs without consulting the other while joint inspections would be conducted on a regular basis. There would be periodic exchange of information between the two states and lifting of soil from the river for brick kilns would also be stopped.

Orissa had strongly protested against the AP decision to construct the spurs claiming that it threatened areas in Gajapati and Rayagada districts.

The state's water resources minister, Mangala Kishan, and secretary of the department, B K Patnaik, had rushed to Hyderabad recently to take up the matter with the AP government. Bureau Report