Krishna waters: Telangana govt sticks to 50:50 ratio

The State government was 'highly disappointed' as despite raising the issue during several meetings of the KRMB, the board was continuing to retain the water sharing in the ratio of 66:34 for the last seven years.

Hyderabad: The Telangana government, which has refused to accept the Krishna River water-sharing arrangement between Andhra Pradesh and the State in the ratio of 66:34 for the year 2022-23, has decided to stick to its demand of 50:50 ratio during the upcoming meeting of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) later this month.

According to Telangana irrigation officials, the State government has registered a strong protest with the Centre on continuing the Krishna river water-sharing arrangement between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the ratio of 66:34 for the year 2022-23. The Telangana government was ‘highly disappointed’ as despite raising the issue during several meetings of the KRMB, the board was continuing to retain the water sharing in the ratio of 66:34 for the last seven years.

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The officials were of the opinion that water distribution should be in the ratio of 50:50 for the current water year, considering the 105 TMC requirement for three operational projects — Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC), Kalwakurthy LIS and Nettempadu LIS. The KRMB has been making ad hoc water-sharing arrangements between AP and Telangana on a year-to-year basis and this was fixed in the ratio of 512:299 tmc ft (AP: TS) in 2015, subsequently revised marginally to 66:34 ratio in 2017.

According to officials, the 66:34 ratio was made only for one year, and Telangana agreed to it with an understanding that the Centre would make fair allocations by referring the matter to the KRMB, but the latter continued the arrangement and refused to consider the demand of 50:50 ratio of Telangana.

“By not considering the demand of the Telangana government, the board is depriving it of the rightful share of the water,” a senior official said. During 2021-22, Telangana had agreed to the water sharing ratio of 66:34 under protest, subject to the condition that Andhra shall not divert more than 34 TMC from Srisailam reservoir, but despite the request, KRMB allowed Andhra Pradesh to draw waters far over their legitimate claim of 34 TMC, the official said.

Interestingly, even though Telangana was not accepting the water-sharing ratio of 66:34, Andhra Pradesh had gone ahead and started demanding the KRMB to revise the ratio of water-sharing to 70:30, which was however declined by the board. Apart from raising the issue of water sharing in the ratio of 50:50, Telangana officials would be raising the issue that water not used in one water year should be allowed to be used in the next year, only 20 per cent of the water used for Hyderabad’s drinking water needs should be taken into account, real-time data sensor (Telemetry) should be installed to accurately calculate the consumption of water released from Krishna Projects and also the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS) modernisation issue.