Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the Krishna and Godavari river water management boards to regulate the release of canal water and supervise project gates on their respective rivers without a role for State governments.
The boards should make area specific water allotments in the two river basins only after meeting the drinking water requirements of Hyderabad and other cities and towns. Hyderabad should be allotted 50 tmcft for drinking purposes, Mr. Rao told the Krishna and Godavari boards chairmen S.K. Pandit and M.S. Agrawal respectively when they called on him on Monday. The member secretaries of both boards R.K. Gupta and J.S. Chandrasekhar were also present at the meeting attended by Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao and Principal Secretary S.K. Joshi. Mr. Rao wanted the projects to be guarded by jawans of Central Industrial Security Force and offered a helicopter for aerial survey by board officials for an intensive study of the character of projects on Krishna. The injustice done to Telangana in sharing of Krishna river water would be best understood by aerial survey.
Asking the officials to correct the injustice to Telangana in river water, Mr. Rao said the boards must prepare and implement the operational rules for all projects constructed on Krishna and Godavari. The water allocation, supply and consumption in both the basins was biased against Telangana in the combined State. The governments promoted projects in Seemandhra and neglected those in Telangana. The chain link of tanks which irrigated 20 lakh acres in Telangana was deliberately broken by governments. An allocation of 90 tmcft in Krishna and 175 tmcft in Godavari was made to fill minor irrigation sources in Telangana but it was never maintained. The governments also designed the left and right canals of Nagarjunasagar in a manner to easily carry water to Andhra. Though the Srisailam left bank canal was designed earlier than Telugu Ganga, the latter was completed on a war footing. Mr. Rao disclosed the plans of his government to supply drinking water to Hyderabad by Palamuru lift irrigation scheme.
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