The Government of Telangana on Wednesday clarified to the
Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that it was not violating any
orders by generating power in the Srisailam Left Bank hydro-electric
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power project to save standing crops in Telangana.
In its response to the KRMB’s letter, Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation)
C. Muralidhar wrote to Member-Secretary of KRMB R.K. Gupta that there
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was no truth in the Andhra Pradesh’ allegation as mentioned in his
(KRMB Secretary’s) letter to the Principal Secretary (Irrigation) of
Telangana S.K. Joshi in Tuesday.
Water was not being drawn from Srisailam beyond the normal releases
against the prevailing orders for power generation by Telangana but in
the absence of the complaint made by the Government of AP it was not
possible to specifically rebut its allegations. However, he made it
clear that Telangana had not violated any order with power generation
and it would not do anything which was not for the interests of its
people.
It appeared from the KRMB’s letter that the water storage in Srisailam
reservoir was not getting priority for drinking water and irrigation
needs. Denying the allegation Mr. Muralidhar stated that water from
Srisailam reservoir was drawn to Pothireddypadu regulator (60.17 TMC
ft), Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (5.37) and Kalwakurthy Lift
Irrigation Scheme (0.262) in sufficient quantities so far.
The power being generated at Srisailam was being utilised to save the
standing crops and such generation should be treated, in termed of
priority, on par with that of irrigation requirements, the
Engineer-in-Chief told the KRMB Secretary. Besides, Andhra Pradesh was
not providing Telangana its due share of power as per the provisions
of the AP Reorganisation Act, he added.