TG officials to skip Delhi meet on Jan 30

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has forewarned the Centre that the members of the state on the official committee would not attend the meeting on January 30 in New Delhi unless Andhra Pradesh is prevented beforehand from going ahead with its DPR preparation for Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar project.

Irrigation Secretary Rahul Bojja has written a strong letter to the Jal Shakti Ministry against AP’s plans relating to the contentious Polavaram-Nallamala Sagar Link Irrigation project. The committee members from Telangana would not attend the meeting until the Centre stops AP from preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR), the Secretary said. “The state government is constrained to inform that, it shall participate in the meetings of the official committees only if the process of preparation of DPR of Nallamala Sagar project and its illegal construction by AP is halted immediately,” he wrote.

The official said that the AP government was proceeding ahead with preparation of the DPR of the project and the CWC was also proceeding ahead with appraisal of its Preliminary Feasibility Report (PFR), which is one of the main concerns raised by the Telangana government. This process is leading to fait accompli situation in respect of this project. “The AP government is proceeding with illegal activities of construction and further preparation of DPR against the instructions of the Ministry of Jal Shakti,” he remarked. Further, Rahul Bojja said in the letter, the Union government inordinately delayed the process of constituting the committee for resolving all other issues of river water sharing between the two Telugu states. Despite earnest efforts to solve other issues, none of the issues were resolved till date.

According to officials, the Telangana government is waiting for a response from the Union ministry on Telangana’s demand to stall the preparation of the AP project’s DPR. If the Centre does not respond positively, the official committee members will stay away from attending the meeting in Delhi on water sharing issues. State Irrigation Sectaries Rahul Bojja and Prashant Patil, Advisor to irrigation - Adityanath Das and Engineer in Chief are the members from the Telangana state on the high-level committee set up by the Centre to solve river water sharing disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.