The Telangana government has objected to the Krishna River Management Board’s (KRMB) decision to install a telemetry station to measure drawl of water from the Srisailam reservoir through Pothireddypadu head regulator by Andhra Pradesh at a point which was not agreed upon by it.
Sources in the Irrigation Department said Special Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi addressed a strongly-worded letter to the Member-Secretary of the KRMB on Friday, expressing discontent over the river board’s decision and also making it clear that the Telangana government would stand by the original proposal as per which the telemetry equipment was to be installed at 600 metres downstream of the Pothireddypady head regulator.
In a letter to the Mechatronics Systems Pvt. Ltd, the agency which was picked up by the KRMB for installing the telemetry equipment at 18 locations, from where water of Krishna river would be drawn both in Telangana and A.P., the river board’s official have asked the former for “installation of telemetry station at 12.265 km of Srisailam Right Main Canal (SRMC) of Pothireddypadu head regulator with non-contact radar velocity and level sensor” instead of the point (location) agreed upon by Telangana, the sources explained.
“What’s the use of measuring the water flow in one of the systems after the drawl from Pothireddypadu is branched out to supplement different systems? From the original drawl capacity of 14,000 cusecs, the capacity was increased to 44,000 cusecs when Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was the Chief Minister and there’s no meaning in measuring only a portion of water being drawn from Pothireddypadu,” a senior official of the Telangana Irrigation Department said.
The sources explained that Pothireddypadu had the capacity to divert a massive four tmc ft water every day and it would be a great injustice to Telangana if the water drawn from the system was not accounted for properly. The KRMB’s letter to the agency further stated that “the proposal to install acoustic uplooking flow profiler at 600 metres downstream of Pothireddypadu head regulator is hereby withdrawn,” and “it is requested to take up the telemetry station at 12.265 km of SRMC with non-radar velocity and level sensors”. In his letter to KRMB, the Special Chief Secretary was understood to have said that he was misquoted out of context in the letter to the private agency.
In its letter to the private agency, it is stated that the Chairman of KRMB had a discussion on the issue with the Special Chief Secretary (Irrigation) of Telangana on July 4. In fact, the KRMB Chairman was understood to have said it would take some time to determine the feasibility of telemetry system at Pothireddypadu in view of certain technical and security reasons. “As a transitory measure, it was agreed to have the telemetry system at the next best alternative point for accounting water drawl during the current year,” the sources said.
