Undo injustice to Telangana, experts told

Hyderabad: A.K. Bajaj, the chairman of the special experts committee appointed by the Central government, on Monday assured the TS government that the panel will consider its pleas on injustice done to the state all these years and formulate guidelines for Krishna River Management Board in such a way that justice is done to both the states.

The experts committee, along with KRMB officials, were given a presentation by special chief secretary (irrigation) S.K. Joshi on the injustices done to the state at Jala Soudha, the headquarters of TS irrigation department.

The TS team told the experts that though the state had 37 per cent of the catchment area in Krishna River its share of water was not proportionate.

It also complained that the KRMB included Jurala project under common projects for both TS and AP, though it supplies waters only to Telangana region. The TS team also complained that the KRMB did not include Sunkesula and Pulichintala projects in the common list despite Telangana-based projects depending on water from them.

The team also demanded that the KRMB stick to the thumb rule of Krishna river water sharing of 299 tmc ft for Telangana and 512 tmc ft for AP, as decided by the Centre and agreed to by the two states, in all its allotments for both the states. The TS officials insisted that the KRMB should not be allowed to deviate from this agreement at any cost.

The TS team was vehement in its argument before the Committee that in case of any diversion from Godavari to Krishna basin, TS, which was part of undivided AP, should get its share in the waters as and such share cannot exclusively be given to residuary AP.

The team also argued that though inter-basin transfer was disallowed by the Bachawat Commission, AP was still claiming more than 300 tmc ft of Krishna water for the areas that are outside the Krishna basin.

Along with Central Water Commission former chairman A.K. Bajaj (chairman), CWC former chief engineer D.K. Mehta, National Institute of Hydrology (Roorkee) scientist R.P. Pondey, Central Electricity Authority Chief Engineer Pradeep Kumar Sukla, CWC Hydrology director N.N. Roy, (All members), KRMB chairman S.K. Haldar, member-secretary Sameer Chatterjee, TS irrigation adviser R. Vidyasagar Rao and Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar were present. The panel later left for Vijayawada to obtain the views of the AP government.