The final meeting of the Krishna River Management Board before its chairman N.A.V. Nathan retires this month-end will take place here on Friday.
Nevertheless, the board is expected to take up a couple of ticklish issuesthat it is facing due to the confrontation of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on sharing of Krishna water. The two States are locked on the jurisdiction of the board with AP insisting that the control of Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam reservoirs be vested with the board while Telangana argued that it be done only after project-wise allocation of water by Krishna water disputes tribunal.
Another issue that is hanging fire is the complaint of AP to the Centre about construction of Palamuru – Ranga Reddy lift irrigation without the clearance of Apex council under AP Reorganisation Act. Telangana government argued that it was permitted to take up preparation of detailed project report by the Kiran Kumar Reddy government in the erstwhile State. It did not mean administrative clearance. The new projects on Krishna were also on the agenda at the last meeting of KRMB but it could not be taken up. Telangana stoutly denied that Palamuru – Ranga Reddy was a new project.
The meeting was also expected to go into water release from Nagarjunasagar as directed by KRMB up to May 31.
Andhra Pradesh was supposed to get six tmc ft as per the decision but it complained that it got only 1.2 tmc ft so far as Telangana held back water release from Nagarjunasagar. The releases in kharif and rabi next year would be discussed as per the allocation to AP and Telangana in the ratio of 512 : 299 tmc ft.
