Who should control Nagarjuna Sagar?

The demand of the Andhra Pradesh government to hand over control over the 13 crest gates of Nagarjuna Sagar dam to it is unjustified . The right canal i.e., Jawaharlal Nehru Canal was built conveniently to discharge the water from the dam even at dead storage level whereas the Left Canal i.e., Lal Bahadur Sastri Canal was designed in such a way that the water cannot be discharged at the same dead storage level like the right canal.

Moreover the dam, topographically, is under the control of Telangana state only. As per the allocation of Bachawat Award, the Krishna water share is denied to the Telangana region in the erstwhile AP state, purported to be justified, but the same was overlooked by the rulers in the composite state.

The Telangana State government has been claiming that the existing water available in Nagarjuna Sagar dam is its share and hence it has absolute right to use it for the rabi season. In this context, it is pertinent to see actual situation now prevailing in the AP state. The Pulichintala Dam also called K L Rao Sagar Multipurpose Irrigation Project serving irrigation needs of about 13 lakh acres in the four districts of West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur, and Prakasam as well as hydro power generation needs was constructed downstream of the Nagarjuna Sagar dam, as a balancing reservoir with a capacity of 46 tmcft water.

It is exclusively utilised by the AP state itself in addition to the existing storage water in Prakasam barrage at Vijayawada. In this situation, the Nagarjuna Sagar project, which is now an interstate dam between AP and Telangana states, is no longer be required to serve the agriculture needs of AP as the Pulichintala Project already been completed and trial run was also conducted by the then Chief Minister before the bifurcation. Now it is the legitimate right of Telangana to provide more water to the farmers in Nalgonda and Khammam.

Therefore, the demand of Telangana state is fully justified, since it has every right to receive its share of water at least in the coming years by revising its irrigation projects along its course, so far deliberately denied for the last six decades. The interpretation of the Andhra Pradesh state and its request for takeover of all the dams on Krishna river by Krishna River Management Board river or to hand over the 13 crest gates to itself are not correct. This came in the context of the demand of Telangana State for total control over the Nagarjuna Sagar dam.

This logic is impracticable. Neither takeover of the dams on Krishna river by the Board is feasible nor handover of control over the 13 gates of the Dam is tenable. It is nothing short of dividing the dam like the division of Siamese twins whose organs have grown on one side fully, ignoring the other body of the same.

Similarly the Right Canal is in a advantageous position, thanks to the deride plan of action executed by Late K L Rao that disturbed the structural design and location site of the dam, contrary to the earlier proposal and agreement reached by the Hyderabad State and Madras Province prior to the formation of the AP state. At least now, the AP government should rethink in view of the loss suffered by the Telangana people ever since the formation of composite state in 1956 till the bifurcation of state into Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Now the both state governments should sit across the table and solve the sharing of the river waters, not only of Krishna but also Godavari basin, in the interest of people of both states and their prosperity.

By:P Narahari