KCR writes to Centre as Telangana seeks complete control over dam on Krishna

Telangana has sought complete control over the operation of Srisailam Dam on the Krishna river to prevent Andhra Pradesh from constructing “illegal projects” without the Centre’s permission. K Chandrasekhar Rao, the Telangana chief minister, wrote a letter to Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Friday in this regard.

In the 14-page letter, Rao accused the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) constituted for water sharing between the two states of being biased against Telangana and favouring Andhra Pradesh. He said Andhra Pradesh is going ahead with the expansion of the capacity Pothireddypadu head regulator on the Srisailam reservoir to draw 80,000 cusecs of water from the Krishna river to Pennar basin. Rao the regulator was originally meant for drawing only 1,500 cusecs to supply drinking water to Chennai.

Andhra Pradesh has finalised tenders for the construction of the Rayalseema Lift Irrigation Scheme to lift 3 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water daily from the Srisailam Reservoir and transport it to the Pennar and adjoining basins.

“Though the matter was brought to the notice of KRMB in February itself, it has failed to take any action to stop these illegal projects. The KRMB has also failed to install a telemetry system to measure the largescale illegal withdrawal of water by AP [Andhra Pradesh] from Pothireddypadu regulator. Instead, the board gave instructions to Telangana to stop the release of water from Srisailam Left Bank Power House of Telangana,” said Rao.

He cited the arrangements and said the responsibility to operate the Nagarjunasagar Project was given to Telangana and Srisailam Project to Andhra Pradesh. “Because of the failure of KRMB, Andhra Pradesh has taken advantage of this arrangement to illegally draw huge quantities of water from Pothireddypadu.”

He said the operation and control of the Srisailam Project should also be given to Telangana to stop Andhra Pradesh from going ahead with its plans of expanding the capacity of its projects.

“If Andhra Pradesh is allowed to go ahead with their nefarious and illegitimate expansion plans now, there will be no water available to meet the requirements for existing projects in Telangana including the drinking water needs of the capital city Hyderabad.”

Rao said Telangana was waiting to know its legitimate share of river waters even after six years of its formation. He asked the Centre to address the issue in a time-bound manner.

Rao called Andhra Pradesh’s objections to the projects being constructed on the Godavari river like Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme as a complete farce. He said all these projects were contemplated, designed, and grounded before Telangana’s creation in 2014.

“The present government has only re-designed some of the projects to augment irrigation potential well within the riparian rights of Telangana.”

The Centre has called a meeting of representatives of the two sates on October 6 to resolve their water disputes.