VIJAYAWADA: Crying foul over Telangana Govenment’s request for allocation of 103 TMCFT of Krishna water, Andhra Pradesh Government has decided to bring forth the facts kept ‘undisclosed’ by the Telangana Government in the meeting of the three-member committee of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) in Hyderabad on November 30.
In the first week of November, Telangana Irrigation Engineer-in-Chief C Muralidhar had written a letter to KRMB seeking 103 TMCFT for Rabi season stating Telangana has another 101 TMCFT of its share unused. The letter was followed by a meeting with KRMB officials later in the month.
Andhra Pradesh Government was asked to give its view and it was supposed to be discussed in the three member committee of the KRMB, to be attended by EnCs (irrigation) of both the states and the member-secretary of KRMB. However, it got postponed.
Three days ago, in a letter written to KRBM member secretary, Andhra Pradesh Engineer-in-Chief (irrigation) M Venkateswara Rao said that Telangana is due only 28 TMCFT and not the 101 as claimed by it.
It also refuted the claims of Telangana irrigation department that Andhra Pradesh had utilised more than its share of Krishna River Water.
In the letter it was mentioned that 149.893 TMCFT of water excluding 36.378 TMCFT of Pattiseema was utilised by Andhra Pradesh. The letter also brought to the fore the utilisation of 89.15 TMCFT for minor irrigation water by storing water under Mission Kakatiya, which also need to be considered for calculating the total use of water in Krishna basin by Telangana.
On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh had only utilized 15.85 TMCFT under minor irrigation, following 28.30 per cent deficit rainfall as against 18 per cent excess rainfall in Telangana than normal. Telangana has over utilised 36.12 TMCFT while Andhra Pradesh under utilised the same amount.
Taking all the issues into calculation, Telangana is left with only 28 TMCFT for use while Andhra Pradesh has another 145.90 TMCFT, the letter maintained.
When contacted, Engineer-in-Chief M Venkateswara Rao said that Telangana Government had omitted certain facts about the remaining share of Krishna River Water. “We will take up the same in the KRMB meeting to be held in Hyderabad tomorrow,” he said.
The farmers associations are supporting the Government stance on sharing of river water.
“We should stand firm in our argument. Any faltering at this point will prove disastrous for the agriculture community in the coming days. We have to protect our rightful share of water,” Y Nagendranath, a farmers’ leader from Krishna delta said.