KRMB shifting: More in favour of Kurnool or Vijayawada

Not many are in favour of moving the Board headquarters to Visakhapatnam as proposed by the government of Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad: The chorus is growing for relocation of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) either to Vijayawada or Kurnool. Not many are in favour of moving the Board headquarters to Visakhapatnam as proposed by the government of Andhra Pradesh. The board has in all 56 employees from both technical and non-technical wings and a majority of them were from Andhra Pradesh.

They have already made their options clear by insisting relocation of the Board headquarters to any other place of the Government’s choice within the the Krishna river basin. Shifting the board headquarters to Visakhapatnam would be ill-advised as it would amount to venturing to manage the water sharing issues the board has been tasked with, in absentia, said sources.

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Now that AP is at loggerheads with Telangana staking claim for more say in the operation of the joint projects on Krishna, it would insist on immediate relocation of the KRMB headquarters. It will be more so in the backdrop of the November 29 face-off between the police forces of the two States at the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam site.

Since the KRMB is gearing up for taking over the operational control of the Joint projects including Srisailam Dam and the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam from the two riparian States, it would be a tough task for it to manage the operations from a distance. Visakhapatnam is away from the Krishna river basin.

The only justification for relocating the Board to Visakhapatnam is that it would facilitate coordination between the KRMB with the Department of Water Resources of AP to be located in Visakhapatnam. The top brass of the Board may prefer Visakhapatnam as the Board chairman is holding the charge of the Polavaram project as well.

But rest of the staff would not have any option but to fly to Hyderabad to reach the projects by road every time there is an emergency. They have to adopt the same mode for frequenting to the project which would be mandatory during the monsoon time. But the support staff would not be eligible for the expensive air travel.

Besides this, the Board which has been insisting on allotment of an office space of some 17000 sq ft, is yet to be given the final confirmation on this count. Besides representatives of the peasant bodies from Rayalaseema region in AP, the government of Telangana has also requested AP government to relocate the board to a place convenient for all the stake holders well within the river basin.

The shifting of the KRMB headquarters may take little more time as the AP High Court given a written direction to the State government not to relocate the government offices to Visakhapatnam until all the petitions filed challenging the relocation move were disposed of.