TS, AP Agree to Hand Over Op Control of Krishna River Projects to KRMB

Hyderabad: Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh on Thursday agreed to hand over operational control of 15 projects on River Krishna to the Krishna River Management Board, at a meeting of the board with engineers-in-chief (ENC) from both states. Six of these are in Telangana state.

Speaking to media persons after the meeting, Telangana ENC C. Muralidhar Rao said while operations will be handled by KRMB, the quantum of water released to the states will be decided by a three-member committee. He said that both states had agreed to depute their personnel at the projects and that they would work under the direction of the Board hereon.

As far as maintenance of the two big dams is concerned, he said Telangana state would continue to take care of Nagarjunasagar while AP would be responsible for the Srisailam dam.

He said the projects were not fully handed over to KRMB, but only the operational control and that the larger issues will be discussed in Delhi at a high-level meeting.

The KRMB was, yet again, informed of Telangana state’s concerns and demands, and the discussions on Thursday centred around the distribution of water for current use between the two states. There were no discussions concerning hydel power generation or other issues, Rao said.

Muralidhar Rao said the Telangana state government wrote to the Centre with its demands that include a 50-50 share of the allocated water for the two states till the time the Krishna Water Distribution Tribunal-II finalises allocations. He said the Centre was also informed about the state’s drinking, irrigation and hydel power generation demands.

Andhra Pradesh ENC Narayana Reddy said the agreement to hand over projects includes six in Telangana state and nine in Andhra Pradesh, adding that Telangana state had agreed to release 5 tmc ft of water for drinking purposes from the Nagarjunasagar.