The running-feud over utilisation of Krishna waters and generation of power between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana will come up before the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), an authority constituted by the Centre under the provisions of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, on Wednesday for a dialogue to sort out and settle the contentious issues.
The Irrigation Department authorities of both the States have geared up to reiterate their respective arguments before the board with the support of “facts and figures”. The controversy over utilisation of water in Srisailam reservoir by Telangana government for generation of power in the Left Bank Powerhouse for “saving the standing crops” deepened last week with the war of words between the two sides.
Member Secretary of KRMB R.K. Gupta wrote two letters to Telangana during the last 10 days asking it to give priority to drinking water and irrigation needs over power generation while utilising the river waters. But the Telangana government stood its ground stating that it was drawing water for “irrigation purposes” itself as the power generated was being used for irrigating the standing crops.
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Official sources stated that such controversies could be avoided only by formulating new protocols for water releases to different projects, irrigations systems in the Krishna basin.