KRMB to supervise water release only, nothing handed over, says ENC

Hyderabad: The irrigation department on Friday declared that it has not handed over any of its projects on the Krishna to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and that it had only agreed to a three member committee’s decision on water releases from the river in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

“All that has been agreed to at Thursday’s meeting is that KRMB will implement the decision of the committee with respect to water releases. The KRMB will have no other role other than to supervise the decisions of the committee,” engineer-in-chief C. Muralidhar Rao told reporters.

“There has been no change in the share of water between the states though we have made it clear to KRMB that Telangana stands by its demands that include a 50-50 share of water until a final arbitration is made on the share by the Krishna Water Distribution Tribunal.”

The explanation came in the midst of attacks from the opposition BRS that the Congress government has given up completely any controls over using the Krishna water.

Muralidhar Rao reiterated that no project of Telangana state on the Krishna was ‘handed over to KRMB’, and that the physical control of the structures remained with the respective states. As far as hydel power generation stations on the river in Telangana state are concerned, he said this was not discussed and a final decision will be taken by the two state governments and hoped that this would be done by this year’s monsoon season.

Principal secretary, irrigation, Rahul Bojja, said at no point of time had Telangana state agreed to hand over full control of the projects on Krishna to the board. “We have also written to the Centre that the minutes of the January 17 meeting in Delhi on the river water sharing and other issues were incorrect and that we agreed to hand over the projects in 30 days to the KRMB,” he said.

The previous government too had announced in the Legislative Assembly that it agreed in principle to give KRMB the control of projects, but only if the conditions and demands of the state are met. That stand has not changed, and hence the question of handing over the projects does not arise, he said.