The stalemate in release of water to the standing crop in Prakasam and Guntur districts from the right main canal of Nagarjunasagar which had led to agitations in the command area was resolved on Wednesday evening with the Telangana government agreeing to implement the water release order issued by the Krishna River Management Board earlier.
As the meeting was in progress, 5 tmc ft water which was ordered for release from January 18 was discharged from Nagarjunasagar project.
Unclear provisions
Sources said the Telangana government told the KRMB meeting on Wednesday that it did not release water for the last 21 days citing unclear provisions in the order.
Officials representing Telangana claimed that the order was not clear on how much was to be released daily and till what date. They also drew the project officials reluctance to use the water immediately.
The Andhra Pradesh government represented by Principal Irrigation Secretary Sashibhushan Kumar and Engineer-in-Chief M. Venkateswara Rao denied the claims.
They restrained from raising penal provisions of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act and the consequential punishment for non-implementation of the order as the issue was sorted out.
The meeting also decided to release from Thursday another six tmc ft for Krishna delta from left Nagarjunasagar left canal which had also been ordered earlier by KRMB.
Heated exchanges
Both sides were engaged in heated exchanges over diversion of water from Godavari to Krishna.
While Telangana raised the question of utilisation of 80 tmc ft water from Pattiseema project by AP, the latter quoted figures of National Water Development Agency about 211.145 tmc ft diverted by Telangana from Godavari to Krishna to meet drinking water needs of Hyderabad (6.43 tmc ft), from Sriramsagar project (68.48), Pranahita - Chevella (83.190 tmc ft), Godavari lift-irrigation scheme (24.650 tmc ft), Indiramma flood flow canal of SRSP (6.645 tmc ft) and Sitarama lift irrigation (21.750 tmc ft).
Minor irrigation tanks
The meeting also discussed the filling up of 23,000 minor irrigation tanks in by Telangana in Krishna river basin and the demand of AP that it should be taken into account to estimate the water usage by the State. It was decided to work out various methods to assess the usage.
