Hyderabad: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states are going to oppose the move by the Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards to take control of all projects on the two rivers in order to streamline the administrative and technical functions in distribution of water among the two states.
The Union water resources ministry has convened a meeting in Delhi on February 15 with officials from both state governments and representatives from the Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards.
The Krishna and Godavari River Management Boards were constituted by the Central government three years ago after the AP Reorganisation Act was adopted by Parliament. However, for ad-ministrative convenie-nce, the management of the Srisailam Reservoir was given to Andhra Pr-adesh, and of the Nagar-junasagar to Telangana dtate. But experience has shown that both the state governments have been diverting more wat-er than allocated to each, and there are discrepancies in the quantum of drawls. As far as utilisation of waters under minor irrigation sector goes, both state governments are furnishing the information sought by the Boards.
To put an end to the pr-oblems, the River Boards propose to bring all the projects under their control and administration in order to discipline the states’ drawing of water and the violations they commit. Each state complains against the other but the Board is unable to take action as the projects are not under its control.
The TS government is totally against the move and AP is partially agai-nst it. Telangana’s contention is that until project-wise allocation of water is still undecided (the matter is being currently heard by the Kris-hna Water Disputes Tri-bunal), it is not possible to bring the projects under the control of the Boards.
According to Telanga-na government officials, without knowing the all-ocations how can boards take control of the reservoirs and start dictating terms to the governme-nts? Telangana is equally opposing the Godavari River Management Boa-rd taking control over the projects. It fears that if such powers are given to the Godavari Board, it may take objection to the construction of the Kale-swaram and Sitarama li-ft schemes in Telangana, which are at an advanc-ed stage of construction.
Andhra Pradesh is concerned that if such powers are given to the Boar-ds, they may not divert more waters from the Sr-isailam Dam to Rayalas-eema projects through Pothireddypadu and Malyala lift schemes. There will also be the question of the diversion of Goda-vari waters to the Krish-na basin through the Pattiseema lift scheme.
The Krishna River Management Board has prepared the draft plan and placed it before both states for their comments before sending it to the Union water reso-urces ministry for issuing notification.
