‘Legalise Krishna water quota for greater Rayalaseema’

New pressure group discusses welfare of the region

July 26, 2019 12:48 am | Updated 12:48 am IST - ANANTAPUR

Promising the Krishna river water for the greater Rayalaseema region, the Pattiseema and Chintalapudi lift irrigation schemes on the Godavari have been operationalised and from 2021 June the Polavaram will service the Krishna Delta region.

Thus the entire quantum of Krishna water thus saved must be immediately legalised for supply from the Srisailam through a government order, demanded a pressure group from the region.

Led by former Minister Sake Sailajanath, former MPs Mysoora Reddy, G. Prathap Reddy and former Guntakal MLA Madhusudhan Gupta, a ‘yet to be named’ pressure group for the welfare of greater Rayalaseema - the four district of Rayalaseema along with Prakasam and Nellore districts – held a meeting in Hyderabad last week on fulfilling the promise to the region while taking up the Pattiseema or the Polavaram.

At a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Mysoora Reddy and Mr. Sailajanath said this was a non-political organisation and since the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had a meeting on modalities of cooperation for bringing the Godavari water to Srisailam, the group took up this water sharing issue first.

Main demand

“Our demand is maintaining 885 feet full reservoir level (FRL) at Srisailam so that allocated water (on 75% dependability) saved from the Krishna Delta, hitherto served either from Prakasam Barrage or Nagarjunasagar Project, is diverted first to the HNSS, Galeru Nagari, Telugu Ganga, Veligonda, Nettampadu or SLBC. A legal framework must be created for letting the region first draw the 40 tmcft saved (due to Pattiseema or Chintalapudi lift projects) from the coming season through Pothireddypadu Head Regulator,” said Mr. Mysoora Reddy.

‘CMs should talk’

Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his Telangana counterpart Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao must sit together and leverage their bonhomie to arrive at a realistic formula to regulate water at the Srisailam dam as per Bachawat Tribunal allocations, said Mr. Reddy. Power generation must be done only if there was water flow above 885 feet so that the need of the region was first met, said Mr. Sailajanath.

Telangana quota

The allocation to Telangana through its Kalwakurthy and Nettampadu also could be met and another 80 tmcft Krishna water saved from the time the Polavaram dam got operationalised.

Steps should be taken to serve the Godavari water through NSP Left and Right Canals so that there was no dependence on the Krishna water downstream of the Nagarjunasagar Project, they added.

It was up to Telangana if wanted to take up the Dummugudem project from the tail-end pond of the Nagarjunasagar - a project started in combined Andhra Pradesh, but stopped after division of the State, he said.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.