Reviewing the drinking water situation in the State, he directed the officials to be ready to draw water even from the dead storage levels in the Nagarjuna Sagar project if needed to address the situation.
The three-member committee of the River Management Board, which met here, discussed the drinking water needs of both states and the utilisation of 80 tmc of water allotted to them in October.
The Board officials made it clear that Telangana had already exhausted its allotted quota of 35 tmc for the current water year. In fact it had drawn more.
The State will be writing to Ministry of Jal Shakti seeking immediate steps to stop release of two TMC water allotted of late to AP and spare whatever little is left in the project only for meeting the drinking water needs in Telangana.
In addition to the regular maintenance works, the NDSA team that visited the project some time ago, had also identified certain shortcomings in the maintenance.
The project officials could foresee an unusual situation where in both the States are likely to seek drawls reaching below the minimum drawdown level of 510 feet.
Speaking to the media here, Sukender Reddy said the State government had declared a crop holiday for the ayacut of the left canal of Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) for the Yasangi crop season due to the drastically dip in water levels in the project.
Farmers here have been in a dilemma after the State government declared a crop holiday for the Yasangi season to the areas in the ayacut under the left canal of NSP, citing shortage of water in the project
The Ministry of Jal Shakti and the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) were also posted of the situation. Irrigation officials said that AP continued to draw water from the right canal by lifting the project head regulator.
Telangana Irrigation officials are gearing up to resume control of the Nagarjuna Sagar Project operations while working out strategies to smoothly handle the dam site confrontation with Andhra Pradesh