The Telangana Government has addressed one more letter to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), this time with a request to restrain Andhra Pradesh from going ahead with a new lift irrigation scheme to link Galeru-Nagari (GNSS) with Handri-Neeva (HNSS) based on water drawal from Srisailam reservoir without appraisal by the river board or by the Apex Council.
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In a letter to Chairman of KRMB M.P. Singh, Engineer-in-Chief (General) of the Irrigation Department of Telangana C. Muralidhar wrote on Thursday that the AP Government had given administrative approval for the “new and independent” lift irrigation scheme linking GNSS with HNSS to irrigate 22,186 acres ayacut and provide drinking water to en route villages in August 2020 with a cost of ₹5,036 crore.
In May this year, the State Level Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) of AP had given environmental clearance to the project terming it a “new medium irrigation project”. The LI schemes was envisaged to irrigate 22,186 acres by filling minor irrigation tanks in seven mandals of Kadapa district and also by providing drinking water to village en route by sourcing water from Gandikota reservoir, which is a part of GNSS and gets water from Srisailam reservoir.
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The new scheme is intended to lift water at 56 km of GNSS main canal and discharge it at 483.75 km of HNSS main canal as also at 79.6 km of Punganuru Branch Canal of HNSS. It would have 126.75 km pressure mains (pipeline), 4.9 km tunnel and 6.45 km gravity canal. The ENC also stated that AP had also applied for new balancing reservoirs and to irrigate about 24,000 acres, both utilising 15.53 tmc ft water.
He pointed out that both GNSS and HNSS were based on flood water of Krishna drawn from Srisailam reservoir and said the new LI scheme that links GNSS and HNSS would divert more water form the Krishna Basin to Penna Basin. He mentioned that Telangana was also contesting the outside-the-basin projects including GNSS and HNSS before Krishna (Brijesh Kumar) Water Disputes Tribunal-II.
Stating that the new projects were neither appraised by the river board nor approved by the Apex Council as per the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, the Telangana ENC requested the KRMB Chairman to address SEIAA to keep in abeyance the EC granted to the new lift scheme and unauthorised expansion of the existing projects, which too, he said, were unauthorised.