With the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) still lacking jurisdiction (control) over the projects common to Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Telangana State (TS) on the river, “bad blood” continues to flow between the two States.
The KRMB has been postponing fixing the share of river water each State could draw in the past two consecutive meetings.
The States too “conveniently” did not insist as the inflows from the upper reaches were abundant this year. The engineers of both States are however getting ready for a showdown.
After trading allegations of “unauthorised” drawal from Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, now AP water resources engineers are charging TS of “under-reporting” the quantum of water it was drawing from Jurala Project.
This issue was going to be taken up by the AP Water Users’ Associations Apex Committee with KRMB at the next meeting.
‘50 tmcft missing’
The AP engineers allege that there was a 50 tmcft difference in the quantum of water that entered Jurala and the amount of water that left the project as measured by the Central Water Commission (CWC) gauges last year. This year 37 tmcft of water seems to have “disappeared” till now, they say.
The TS had an advantage with Jurala as it shared the project with Karnataka and not AP.
The allegation was that the TS was resorting to unauthorised diversion to the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, Koilsagar and Nettampadu reservoirs. While the Bachawat Tribunal awarded only 17.1 tmcft for erstwhile Andhra Pradesh and the TS, more was being drawn by the new State, the AP engineers alleged.
The State wants to take up with the Union Ministry of Water Resources the inordinate delay in granting the KRMB control over the reservoirs on the river. Currently A.P. has control over Srisailam and the TS over Nagarjuna Sagar, according to the agreement reached at the time of bifurcation.
The “inordinate delay” in shifting the KRMB office from Hyderabad to Vijayawada was also an issue which should be taken up with the Centre.
The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation wrote a letter on January 24 to shift the office to Amaravati in accordance to Section 85(2) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, but there was no indication of it till date, the engineers said. This too was resulting in the board favouring TS, they alleged.