KRMB orders AP to stop water release from Nagarjunasagar

Hyderabad: The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) on Friday wrote to the Andhra Pradesh government to immediately stop the release of water into the right canal of the Nagarjunasagar dam. The Telangana state police, meanwhile, registered a case against its AP counterparts for criminal trespass with an intention to commit a criminal act after AP police and AP irrigation officials allegedly forced their way into the dam’s control room and began releasing water.

The KRMB in its letter said it received a complaint from the Telangana state government that Andhra Pradesh, without any notice, encroached onto the dam on the night of November 29, with more than a 1,000 police and paramilitary forces from that state laying a fence through the central line of the dam’s axis and took control of the dam stating that it belonged to Andhra Pradesh.

The KRMB pointed out that since the bifurcation of Telangana from unified AP, the operational management of the Nagarjunasagar dam was given to Telangana state on an ad-hoc basis, while a similar arrangement was made for Srisailam dam with AP given ad-hoc control of that dam’s operations. “The same has been in vogue for about the past 10 years,” the KRMB said in its letter to Andhra Pradesh.

It said that Telangana state complained that after taking control over Nagarjunasagar dam, AP officials began releasing 5,000 cusecs of water into the dam’s right canal that serves the AP side of the dam.

The KRMB said AP had sought a total of 15 TMC of water to meet drinking water needs in the state that was to be released in three instalments with 5 TMC each in October 2023, in January 2024, and in April 2024, which was approved by the Board. Since the October release was already done and the demands of AP were met, and since the KRMB did not receive any fresh indent from AP for fresh releases as was done in the intervening night of November 29 and 30, AP should immediately stop the release of water.

Earlier in the day, a sub-inspector of TSPF, S Vijay Kumar, posted on security duty at the dam lodged a complaint with the state police at the Vijayapuri police station in Nalgonda district charging the AP police and irrigation officials with criminal trespass with an intention to cause damage.

The Vijayapuri police have registered a case and filed a First Information Report (FIR) in the case. In the FIR, the police said AP police forces “attacked” the “right bank gate which is under control of Telangana I&CAD department” with around 500 armed forces “bulldozed the gate and forcefully trespassed inside the dam and laid barbed wire fencing duly protection taking entire position of dam from 13th gate to 26th gate and also the right canal head regulator and right bank connectivity by violating the existing system in force by breaking of four CCTV cameras also.”

The FIR  said that the AP police “further operated the right canal head regulator irregularly by releasing water to the right canal for the Andhra region and water is going as waste against the KRMB norms.”

Meanwhile, a team of senior irrigation engineers from Telangana visited the dam on Friday to take stock of the situation.