Telangana accuses AP of drawing excess water from Krishna River

Telangana government on Friday has accused Andhra Pradesh of drawing excess water from the Krishna river more than its entitlement

Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Friday has accused Andhra Pradesh of drawing excess water from the Krishna river more than its entitlement and encroaching into Telangana’s share of water in the common reservoirs.

Irrigation and Command Area Development (CAD) department Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar wrote a letter to the chairman of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) asking him to intervene in the matter and direct Andhra Pradesh to stop utilizing Telangana share of water from the Krishna river.

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He informed that since Telangana does not have exclusive offline storages, it kept its balance of 18.701 TMC of its share in the common reservoir of the Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) for the purpose of drinking water and irrigation requirements in the early months of the current fiscal.

However, Andhra Pradesh on July 12 raised an indent of 5 TMC to Nagarjuna Sagar Right Canal (NSRC) Project towards drinking water requirement for the month of July and utilised the Telangana share of water. “NSP has so far not received inflow from the Srisailam project. Hence, the water available in NSP belongs to Telangana and the AP has used it against the rule,” he said.

Last year too Andhra Pradesh had utilized 205.20 TMC excess water than its entitlement share as per the 50:50 ratio, he said, adding that even considering the 34:66 (TS:AP) sharing ratio, Andhra Pradesh had utilized 51.745 TMC excess water than its entitle share.

He urged the KRMB chairman to refer the sharing of water issue to the union water resources department and ministry of Jal Shakti.