Telangana government, which brought the plans of Andhra Pradesh to divert about 8 tmc ft water a day from Srisailam without obtaining the approval of the Apex Council and Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), has explained the injustice planned to be heaped by AP on it (Telangana) with its controversial decision.
Principal Secretary (Irrigation) Dr. Rajat Kumar met Chairman of KRMB J. Chandrashekhar Iyer here on Wednesday and described in detail the injustice likely to be done by Andhra Pradesh to Telangana with its plans to divert huge quantity of Krishna water without any approvals. He brought to the board chief’s notice that Telangana has been requesting the board for installing telemetry equipment to account water drawals by Andhra Pradesh from the Pothireddypadu system but it remains unheeded so far.
He was understood to have pointed out that the sharing ration of 512:299 tmc ft by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was only a temporary arrangement and Telangana has already been arguing for higher allocation before the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal.
Mr. Rajat Kumar explained that the catchment area of Krishna in Telangana was much higher compared to AP and the natural justice would be to allocate more water, at least 575 tmc ft., to it on that account, as was being done in case of the upper riparian States of Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The Telangana official further explained to the KRMB Chairman that the basin areas in Telangana would suffer badly both in terms of drinking water and irrigation if Andhrda Pradesh goes ahead with its plans to divert water to outside the basin at the cost of basin habitants. Officials in the Irrigation Department said Mr. Rajat Kumar also requested the KRMB Chairman to retrain Andhra Pradesh by advocating that taking up new project before settling the existing disputes is not good for all sides and would also complicate the matter further.
