Telangana to oppose Godavari board’s draft

November 21, 2016 12:00 am | Updated December 02, 2016 04:51 pm IST - HYDERABAD:

The State believes the river management body’s attitude is ‘heavily biased’ against it

The Telangana Government is likely to lock horns with the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) opposing the proposals included in the latter’s working manual draft on the management of projects based on the river and its tributaries, as it believes that the board’s attitude is ‘heavily biased’ against it.

In the working manual draft, sent to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh recently, the GRMB authorities are understood to have included half a dozen projects of Telangana against only one of A.P. in the list of projects it proposes to manage. Apart from monitoring the water releases (regulation) from the projects, the board has proposed to keep a tab on power generation, if any, being done at these projects.

Fortnight’s time

The river board has given the two States a fortnight’s time for giving their opinion on the draft and is likely to take a final call on it before forwarding it to the Union Ministry of Water Resources for issuing a formal notification at its next meeting likely to be held in December.

Officials of the Telangana Irrigation Department stated that the GRMB has proposed in the draft that it plans to manage water releases and power generation, if any, at Sriramsagar, Nizamsagar, Yellampally, Singur, Kaddam and Lower Manair Dam projects.

All the projects are filled to the brim following heavy rain in September this year and the State Government has prepared an action plan to release water to the ayacut for rabi crops under all these projects.

However, the Telangana Government is strongly opposed to the river board’s proposal to include only Dowleswaram Barrage in A.P. for water regulation.

“It’s totally biased against Telangana since projects such Tadipudi, Pushkar and Jagannathapuram, which have considerable ayacut served by them, have not been included in the list of projects for its supervision”, a senior official said, adding that there was no mention of Pattiseema lift, from where about 45 tmc ft of water is being lifted to the Krishna Basin.

The Telangana Government is also against the board’s intervention before the project-wise quota of water is finalised.

“On the power generation front too, the GRMB’s plan is beyond its purview since the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has made it clear in the past that its mandate was not to intervene in the issues related to power generation when Telangana raised the issue of Lower Sileru,” the official sources explained.

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