A meeting of the sub-committee of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) which met here on Thursday has asked the agency given the contract of installing the telemetry equipment at 18 locations in the Krishna Basin in the two Telugu States to completed the work by June 15. The meeting attended by irrigation officials of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States as also those of KRMB has also asked the agency — Mechatronics Systems Pvt. Ltd. — to rectify telemetry instruments already fixed but which were not functioning properly. It was decided by the board to go for installation of telemetry equipment at 18 identified locations, mostly in Telangana, in the first phase to measure the water drawals by the two States from those locations.

As only the level sensors were installed initially it was not possible to measure the drawals exactly and later it was decided to go for side looking doppler sensors (SLDS) to have more accurate data. “While the level sensors measure only level of the flow, the SLDS instruments would measure both level and velocity at the given location to calculate the near-accurate discharge,” a senior irrigation official said.

Of the 18 identified location for installation of telemetry equipment in the first phase, the instruments were fixed at 15 places, including 14 at different locations in Telangana and at one place, Pothireddypady head regulator, in AP. It is stated that the agency was asked to complete installation of the instruments at the remaining places too. However, there was no discussion on installing the same at 29 more locations identified for the second phase.

Meanwhile, senior officials indicated that the two State could go slow on the installation of telemetry equipment in the second phase, at least till a meeting of the two States at higher-level is held given the bonhomie being exhibited by the two governments now. The issue of telemetry became contentious in the past after Telangana officials brought to the KRMB’s notice how the equipment was tampered with at Pothireddypadu to fudge the data by AP to record lesser drawls than actual quantity. The matter of clearing the payment due to the contract agency was also discussed at the meeting.