Telangana complains to KRMB against AP’s excess drawals

Hyderabad: Telangana has informed the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that the diversion of water by Andhra Pradesh will affect the needs of Krishna basin areas of Telangana from Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, and the new irrigation schemes of AP would further worsen the situation. In a letter to board Chairman, Telangana Irrigation and Command […]

Hyderabad: Telangana has informed the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that the diversion of water by Andhra Pradesh will affect the needs of Krishna basin areas of Telangana from Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, and the new irrigation schemes of AP would further worsen the situation.

In a letter to board Chairman, Telangana Irrigation and Command Area Development Engineer-in-Chief (General) C Muralidhar requested KRMB to restrain AP from proceeding ahead with expansion of projects and restrain it from diverting water from Srisailam reservoir immediately since any expansion or new scheme taken up after June, 2014, attracts the provisions of Section 85(8) of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act (APRA)-2014.

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In two earlier letters, the Irrigation department had requested the Board to restrain AP from expanding Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (HNSS) project and modifying the scope of the project subsequent to June-2014, as also new components to HNSS (which is in itself an unapproved surplus water based project) without any appraisal by KRMB and approval of Apex Council.

It is learnt that the AP government has invited tenders for construction of Jiledubanda reservoir with a capacity of 2.41 TMC to irrigate 23,000 acres in the Dharmavaram constituency in Anantapur district.

In this connection, the Irrigation department addressed the KRMB stating that the AP government issued several government orders and accorded administrative approval for taking up several new schemes and projects after bifurcation at a cost of about Rs.47,776 crore.

The construction of Jiledubanda reservoir was one such new scheme with administrative approval for Rs 680 crore.

From Srisailam reservoir as per the Central Water Commission (CWC) approvals during flood flows, only 34 TMC can be diverted by AP. But during this current water year, AP has already diverted 82.09 TMC from Pothireddypadu Head Regulator and 11.2 TMC from HNSS Lift Irrigation Scheme totalling 93.29 TMC from Srisailam reservoir which needs to be immediately stopped.

More importantly, AP did not plead for allocation of water out of dependable flows to HNSS project under Section 89 proceedings before KWDT-II and Telangana is contesting HNSS project before KWDT-II.

In this regard, Telangana has brought these concerns to the notice of KRMB several times but so far the works have not been suspended by AP.

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