AP ignores KRMB fiat, draws Krishna waters

AP ignores KRMB fiat, draws Krishna waters
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Highlights

The AP government sticks to its guns, asserting its riparian right over drawal of the Krishna water through the Pothireddypadu head regulator, regardless of a direction from the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) in defence of the claim of the Telangana government.

Amaravati: The AP government sticks to its guns, asserting its riparian right over drawal of the Krishna water through the Pothireddypadu head regulator, regardless of a direction from the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) in defence of the claim of the Telangana government.

This assertion by the AP government triggered a fresh inter-state water dispute with Telangana over utilization of the Krishna waters. AP continued to draw water from the Sraisalm reservoir till Wednesday in the wake of KRMB’s orders with the claim that Telangana had already drawn 40tmcft, very much in excess of its stipulated share.

A senior official from AP Water Resources department told The Hans India that they received orders from the government to continue drawal of water till exhaustion of its quota from Pothireddypadu.

Engineer-in-chief of the department M Venkateshwara Rao reportedly wrote to KRMB a week ago seeking allocation of another 9tmcft in addition to his earlier request for 10tmcft. Citing the Rao’s claim, the officials from the department said AP has got every right to draw water up to 19tmcft from Srisailam reservoir and that the TS government’s claim lacked substance.

The officials said it will not be feasible to draw water from the head regulator by gravity if the levels were below the designed mark. Therefore, it is decided to draw the stipulated share when the reserves in the reservoir were at the permissible levels.

AP has been allocated 512tmcft while Telangana is permitted to draw 299tmcft from the Krishna as its share as per the Brijesh Kumar Tribunal.

Another senior official of Water Resource Department argued that Telangana had already utilised around 40 tmcft of water for power generation and meeting irrigation and drinking needs. Reflecting the AP government’s mood, the official said it was not fair on the part of the board to entertain the claims of Telangana government at this point of time.

It may be recalled that the KRMB issued directions to the AP government to stop drawing water from the Srisailam reservoir while responding to a complaint from Telangana engineer-in-chief C Muralidhar.

In the directive, the board said AP had already drawn 12.436tmcft from the Pothireddypadu regulator till 6 am on Tuesday though the board allocated only 5tmcft for meeting drinking needs in September.

In the light of conflicting claims between the two states, the KRMB reportedly favoured a joint inspection of the Potireddypadu head regulator, comprising officials from the Central Water Commission (CWC) and officials of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on a fact-finding mission.

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