Staking claim for a lion’s share, AP out to do away water sharing pattern

The Nagarjuna Sagar Project engineers and officials, who have been tasked with the project operations were threatened and prevented from discharging their duties by the APSP police for two days.

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh is out to do away with the water distribution system in vogue since 2015. The Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) engineers and officials, who have been tasked with the project operations were threatened and prevented from discharging their duties by the APSP police for two days. Dam engineers who are meant to oversee the regular operations were kept away from the head regulator where from water is released to the NSP Right Canal. They were not allowed to take stock of water releases from the 13 of its total 26 gates.

“This is a deeply distressing Law and Order situation experienced for the first time at the project”, resented a senior official on Friday. He informed that the police force that was part of regular deployment for damn surveillance and protection was away on election duty when a strong contingent of 500 AP police personnel intruded into the site. They smashed the CCTV cameras and other communication facilities before putting up barbed wire fencing at the hoist gates between the 13th and 14th crest gates. Their attack caused considerable damage to the project infrastructure.

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The automated gates at the entry points were also damaged by the intruders. A case was booked against them at under section 447 and 427. After taking control of almost half of the dam, the AP police forcibly opened gated no 5 and gate no 7 paving the water for release of around 5000 cusecs of water without any water release order from KRMB. AP was keen on drawing as much water as possible out of the 24 tmc of water available in the project storage. As par the KRMB water release order, it is entitled only for ten tmc of it and it was scheduled to be released in January and April next. Rest of the water would be the exclusive entitlement of Telangana State and it has to be utilised to meet the drinking water needs in Hyderabad.

The project has in all 26 gates and two head regulator one facilitating release of water the Left Canal with a vast ayacut of 6.6 lakh acres in the erstwhile Khammam and Nalgonda districts and 9.7 lakh acres in Andhra Pradesh under the right main canal. The project also provides drinking water to urban and rural areas along the canal system. It also meets the water demands of twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. In addition to the above, it has been supporting 960 MW Power Generation set up at Nargarjunasagar Reservoir.

Shares earmarked at NSP 

The water utilisation earmarked for Telangana from the NSP is 105.70 tmc as against 174.30 TMC for Andhra Pradesh. As part of the post bifurcation understanding the Srisailam Dam has been placed under the control of Andhra Pradesh and Nagarjuna Sagar Dam is under the control of Telangana government as an ad-hoc arrangement. This ad-hoc arrangement is in vogue for the past 10 years and followed in consonance with the orders of KRMB. The utilizations are being made by both the states as per the release orders of KRMB subsequent to the formation of the state.

AP has utilized more water than what is agreed on ad-hoc basis. No injustice was meted out to AP in terms of utilization, said the officials. AP has already utilized its share of water permitted by KRMB. It is entitled for ten more TMC of from the project and its release was scheduled in January and April 2024.