No decision to concede NSP, Srisailam to KRMB: Rahul Bojja

On Friday, Irrigation Secretary Rahul Bojja and Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar emphasized that no decision has been made regarding transferring operational control of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam and Srisailam project to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB)

Hyderabad: Irrigation Secretary Rahul Bojja and the Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar made it clear on Friday that no decision was taken for handing over the operational control of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam and Srisailam project to Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and the State did not concede to either of them to the board so far.

Addressing a joint press conference at Jala Soudha they clarified further that no decision was taken to hand over the joint projects to the River board either at the high-level meeting of the officials from both Telangana and AP held with the Secretary Jal Shakti in chair in New Delhi on January 17 or at the KRMB meeting held in Jala Soudha on February 1.

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The Irrigation Secretary stated that the minutes of the January 17 meeting held in New Delhi were wrongly conveyed. The minutes were issued by union Ministry of Jal Shakti on January 19. Some of the views expressed by the representatives of Telangana were not recorded.

It was claimed that Telangana had agreed to complete the process of handing over 15 important project outlets to KRMB within a month to prepare operation protocols related to their management. But there was no concurrence from Telangana State for handing over the projects, he said.

He explained that as a pre-condition for handing over the projects, Telangana State officials wanted the Ministry of Jal Shakti ensure sharing of waster between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh at 50:50 ratio till the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal delivered its final verdict. Secondly, as suggested by the Tribunal the needs of Krishna basin areas should be given first priority.

The Srisailam project being mainly meant for feeding the hydro-electric units, its minimum draw down level should be fixed at 830 feet and 264 TMCs of water should be diverted to Nagarjuna Sagar Reservoir through power generation outlets. Andhra Pradesh should be allowed to divert only 34 tmcs of Srisailam water through Pothireddypadu head regulator.

Only 20 percent of the water allotted for drinking should be accounted in the State’s share of realisation as the rest would drain again into the river basin.

The state’s share of water stored in reservoir in a particular water year should be allowed to be used in the following water year considering the carry over facility. Andhra Pradesh should be stopped from going ahead with the construction of the illegal structures to divert Krishna waters.

The Irrigation Secretary explained that the State had clarified its stand on the issue by writing to the union Secretary for Jal Shakti on January 27. The same letter was handed over to the KRMB chairman at Thursday ‘s meeting held here as a follow up to the January 17 meeting held by the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

The ENC had stated that in the KRMB meeting that the Hydel projects would continue to remain under the control of the States concerned.

The State government’s final decision on the fate of the other outlets of the main projects would prevail. It has been decided that the management of dams will be remaining within the purview of the respective states as was the practice since the bifurcation.

The reports appeared in the media were contrary to the facts and he asked the media persons to be doubly sure while reporting such sensitive interstate issues.