Srisailam dam unsafe:TG; Will take up must do repairs: AP
HYDERABAD: Telangana and Andhra Pradesh continued to butt heads over the sharing of River Krishna’s waters. At a meeting of the Krishna River Management Board on Tuesday, both states demanded that the Board agree to their demands of share of the river water.
While Telangana insisted that sharing of water should be on a 50:50 ratio between the two states as the final decision on water share was pending before the Krishna Waters Disputes Tribunal-II, Andhra Pradesh rejected this demand and said the existing 66:34 ratio – with AP getting 66 per cent of the 811 tmc ft of water being currently shared by the two states – must be continued till the final award is made by the tribunal.
Speaking to media persons after the meeting at Jalsoudha building, where the KRMB is headquartered, Telangana’s irrigation principal secretary Rahul Bojja said Telangana had registered its protest with KRMB on the 66:34 sharing.
“We have already asked KWDT for a 79:21 ratio for sharing the water. Our stand is that Telangana should get 79% of the share of the river’s water (allocated to undivided AP). And we have also written to Union jal shakti ministry that pending the final KWDT award, water must be shared on a 50:50 basis,” he said.
Rahul Bojja also said that the agreement for 66:34 sharing for one year which was arrived at in 2015 and after that Telangana has been asking for a 50:50 share and the current arrangement was not acceptable to Telangana. The KRMB has agreed to set up a three-member committee to look into the demands of both states, he added.
Telangana engineer-in-chief (general) Anil Kumar said Telangana also raised the issue of safety of the Srisailam dam at the meeting. “We made it clear that the dam needs urgent attention to attend to the void that formed in the downstream plunge pool area.”
“The damage began in 2009 and we made it clear that no chances can be taken and repairs are a must. AP agreed to take steps to address the issue,” Anil Kumar said.
Responding to this concern, AP’s engineer-in-chief Venkateswara Rao said a study was being conducted by Central Soil and Materials Research Station of the Union jal shakti ministry, and protection measures will be implemented once its report is received. In the interim, required emergency repairs will be taken up, he said.
He also said AP informed KRMB that the current 66:34 ratio in sharing of the water must be continued and the board should not accept Telangana’s demand of 50:50 share. If the ratio is changed, then projects that have been protected under the KWDT-I award will suffer and this is not acceptable to AP, Venkateswara Rao said.
