Stop AP from drawing more Krishna water
Hyderabad: Telangana has demanded that the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) immediately stop Andhra Pradesh from drawing any more Krishna river water from the Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam reservoirs.
In a letter to KRMB chairman Atul Jain on Friday, Telangana’s irrigation principal secretary Rahul Bojja said: “As on today, AP has already utilised (Krishna water) far in excess of its entitlement as per KRMB records and therefore the state (AP) cannot draw any waters from the common reservoirs.”
The letter followed a meeting Bojja, Telangana irrigation department engineer-in-chief (general) G. Anil Kumar, and chief engineer of the Nagarjunasagar project, had with the KRMB chairman on Friday. Though the KRMB had called for an urgent meeting with Telangana and AP on Friday, AP wrote to the board saying it could not attend the meeting and sought a postponement. The formal meeting was rescheduled to Monday.
Telangana also placed its indent for water from the river till July this year. As per the indent, the state has said it will require 90 tmc ft of water till the end of this May to meet irrigation needs, and another 17 tmc ft to meet drinking water needs till May 31. The state informed the KRMB that it will require another 9 tmc ft of water from June 1 to July 31 for drinking water needs. This totals to 116 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) of water.
While the KRMB earlier this week said that Telangana had the option of using 131 tmc ft of water from the Krishna, and Andhra Pradesh 27 tmc ft, there is only just around 90 tmc ft of water left in the two reservoirs before they reach their minimum draw down levels (MDDL). There is also increasing pressure from farmers to release water for standing crops, particularly in Telangana, even as Telangana accused AP of drawing 10,000 cusecs of water from the Nagarjunasagar right canal for use in that state.
With water levels falling rapidly in both the Srisailam and its downstream Nagarjunasagar reservoirs, there was much to be discussed at the meeting called on Friday. The Krishna water issue has also turned into a big political debate with the ruling Congress party, the opposition BRS and the BJP taking on each other on the subject and accusing one another of not doing anything to protect Telangana’s interests.
