Telangana, AP spat over telemetry system

Hyderabad: Telangana has informed the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that Andhra Pradesh cannot demand for installation of telemetry at certain locations of the projects with small diversions from the Godavari to Krishna River as they won’t come under claiming of additional share as per Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-I) and Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal […]

Hyderabad: Telangana has informed the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that Andhra Pradesh cannot demand for installation of telemetry at certain locations of the projects with small diversions from the Godavari to Krishna River as they won’t come under claiming of additional share as per Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT-I) and Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal (GWDT) Awards.

Andhra Pradesh Engineer-in-Chief made a request to ascertain the location of all the projects from where Godavari waters are being diverted by Telangana to augment to Krishna River. He also requested to install a telemetry system at the locations of the projects.

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In a letter to the board Chairman, Irrigation and CAD Department, Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar said the claim made by AP was baseless and needless and should be ignored as incorrect and illogical. The projects were contemplated by the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh government in Telangana envisaging to divert Godavari water to the Krishna basin.

Actually, these projects would have been provided with irrigation facilities from river Krishna through Srisailam Left Canal Scheme (SLCS) proposed with 150 TMC utilisation up to Munneru valley before KWDT-I by gravity. Further, the Nandikonda joint project report of 1954 contemplated one lakh acres irrigation through lift from Nagarjuna Sagar Left Canal (NSLC) after the main Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) powerhouse was completed.

But, later on, it was not taken up by the erstwhile AP government. The erstwhile AP government while seeking allocation out of balance flows – 366.64 TMC (2060-1693.36) before KWDT-I deliberately ignored the project and preferred areas outside the basin to enable it to divert Krishna waters to them even though they were out of the basin.

However, none of these schemes could supply a sizable quantity of Godavari water to Krishna basin areas even after decades of their completion. The reason being the Sriramsagar project was unable to supply water to its intended ayacut up to stage-I within the Godavari basin due to insufficient inflows.

The 75 per cent dependable yield of Godavari at this site was drastically reduced to about 54 TMC (past 20 years data) against an envisaged utilisation of 145.35 TMC in stage-I and 22.9 TMC in stage-II. The allegations of AP with regard to projects were based on approximate estimates of the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) which were not based on observed flows and as per the data supplied about 30 years back by the AP government.

Explaining observations in the report of National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development Plan (NCIWRDP)-1999, Muralidhar said the alleged figures placed by AP relying on NWDA reports in the present context were arbitrary and incorrect.

With regard to provisions of KWDT-I and GWDT Award, Maharashtra and Karnataka claimed before KWDT-I that AP was diverting large quantities of Krishna water outside Krishna basin prejudicially affecting the shares of the States in Krishna and requested to direct AP to divert Godavari water to meet its outside basin requirements.

On April 19, 1971, all the riparian States of Krishna and Godavari basin made an agreement before KWDT-I stating that each of the State was at liberty to divert its part of Godavari water to be allocated by the Tribunal to any other basin. The same has also been clearly stated and incorporated as Clause-IV of GWDT. In view of the same, all the States were at liberty to divert their part of Godavari water share to any other basin and in lieu, thereof no other State can raise for a claim over such diversion, he said.

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