AP using excess water despite vigil: Telangana official

​Hyderabad: The experiment to constitute Joint Inspection Teams (JITs) consisting of irrigation engineers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh seems to have failed to achieve the desired results.

The decision to conduct joint inspection was taken at a meeting the two Chief Ministers -- K Chandrashekar Rao and N Chandrababu Naidu -- had with Union minister for water resources Uma Bharti in New Delhi recently.

Sridhar Rao Deshpande, officer on special duty to Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, told The Hans India that the government has come to a conclusion that the joint inspection teams had not deterred AP government from using excess water.

Deshpande said surprise visits by inter-state officials of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) have revealed that the AP government had released excess water from the projects particularly Pothireddypadu Head Regulator during night hours.

Deshpande said that the joint inspection teams of TS and AP began their operations about two weeks back. The teams used to visit the reservoirs and record the water levels at the project site. At that time everything appeared to be as per the norms.

But when the officials of the KRMB visited the reservoirs during night hours to measure the release of water they noticed that AP was drawing excess water.

For instance, as per the records of TS government, AP used to release 8,500 cusecs of water from Pothireddypadu in Kurnool district per day before the joint inspections were done.

After the joint inspection teams started visiting the project sites regularly the release of water had come down and was within the limits of 4,500 cusecs which was allocated to them.

But surprisingly the inter -state officials who conducted a surprise visit during night hours found that AP was releasing more than 15,000 cusecs from Pothireddypadu and also from Banakacharla head regulator, Srisailam dam and Handri – Niva Sujala Sravanthi which was gross violation of the rules.

Taking serious note of this, Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao spoke to KRMB member-secretary Sameer Chaterjee and wanted him to permit the government to set up a permanent outpost at AP projects particularly at Pothireddypadu to monitor water release round-the-clock.

The Telangana government also feels that the telemetry system which was one of the proposals that was discussed at the Chief Ministers’ meeting may also not help in resolving the issue as the prospect of tampering the equipment cannot be ruled out.

The only permanent solution, the government feels, is to have Telangana irrigation officials posted permanently at the projects and monitor water levels in three shifts.

The KRMB officials said that the demand of the Telangana government has been taken into consideration but a decision would be taken after consulting Andhra Pradesh.