Most of the cropping in the Krishna basin in Telangana, till now, is irrigated dry and a majority of the existing irrigated area in the river basin in Andhra Pradesh is irrigated paddy.
This was admitted by AP’s witness P. V. Satyanarayana, an agricultural scientist, before the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal in New Delhi on Friday, during the hearing on sharing Krishna water between the two Telugu States, out of the allocation made for combined AP. The cross-examination of the witness continued for the second day on Friday and senior counsel for Telangana C.S. Vaidyanathan examined him.
Mr. Satyanarayana also admitted before the tribunal that the requirements of evapotranspiration (ET), the process by which water is transferred from land to atmosphere by evaporation from soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants, are “by and large similar” in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He agreed, in the process, that the estimation of water requirement for paddy in both States was almost the same.
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Counsel for Telangana argued that ET requirements for paddy were even less than AP’s in some pockets of Telangana.
Mr. Vaidyanathan told the tribunal that Telangana, while indicating its additional water requirements in the Krishna basin, had not proposed any new area for irrigated paddy . When probed whether AP was more suited for paddy than Telangana and whether productivity of paddy was higher in AP, the witness said, in general, the areas in the Krishna basin in Telangana were more conducive for irrigated-dry crops.