AP welcomes Centre’s move to notify KRMB, GRMB ambits

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh government has welcomed the Centre’s move to notify the jurisdictions of both the Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards so that they will be having control over operation and maintenance of projects located in both the Krishna and the Godavari basins.

Speaking to media here on Friday, water resources principal secretary J. Syamala Rao said that the issue of gazette notification fixing purview of boards on irrigation projects was long due as it was supposed to be issued following bifurcation of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and added that the move would help water share of AP to fall under the jurisdiction of the boards.

The principal secretary pointed out how the Telangana government had been generating hydroelectric power from three projects - Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala - independently in the last 45 days against the norm of placing an indent before the KRMB and proceeding as per its direction. He said the Telangana government started generation of power without obtaining any order from the KRMB and even issued GO 34 to generate 100 per cent power from the projects.

With regard to Srisailam reservoir, Rao said it had an inflow of 30.38 tmc ft of water from June 1 and added that out of it, the Telangana government utilised 29.82 tmc ft of water for generation of power with water storage level dipping to 806.8 ft in the reservoir. He said that the water level in the reservoir should be maintained at 854 feet to get water through Pothireddypadu head regulator on gravity basis and added that the water level should be maintained at 881 feet to store it to be used as AP’s share.

On Pulichintala project, the Telangana government used eight tmc ft of water for power generation despite objection raised by the KRMB and added that in the last 45 days, the Telangana government used 66 tmc ft of water for power generation from June 1 onwards even as both the AP government and the KRMB raised objections.

He said Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to stop power generation by the Telangana government, to notify the jurisdiction of the KRMB, to hand over common projects to it and assign CISF personnel to provide security to the projects. He also said the state government even moved the Supreme Court to resolve the water dispute between AP and Telangana.

Water resources engineer-in-chief C. Narayana Reddy stated that though the Centre was supposed to notify both the KRMB and the GRMB within 60 days from the day of bifurcation of the erstwhile AP on June 2, 2014, there was no much progress on it and added that both AP and Telangana had entered into an agreement on water sharing and even came up with a protocol for the KRMB. He alleged that the Telangana government flouted the agreement and also the KRMB protocol and started drawing water from the three projects to generate power.