HYDERABAD: The height of Medigadda barrage will not be less than 100 metres while Tummadi Hatti will have a height of 148 metres.
Irrigation officials of Telangana and Maharashtra state governments have in principle reached an agreement to this effect on Saturday. The official level committee of Maharashtra and Telangana states met at MCR HRD in Hyderabad to reach a consensus on the height of the barrages.
The height of Tummadi Hatti barrage was reduced to 148 metres from the proposed 152 metres by TS government long back as demanded by the Maharashtra government. In Saturday’s meeting, TS reiterated that they want to construct a barrage of a minimum height of 148 metres at Tummadi Hatti. If the height of the barrage is fixed at 148 metres, there won’t be any issue related to submergence of land in Maharashtra.
While discussing the height of Medigadda barrage, proposed as part of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project, the TS said the plan was to construct a barrage of 103 metres FRL.
However, Maharashtra officials objected to it and wanted to reduce the height of the barrage to 100 metres.
TS had already indicated during the signing of an MoU with Maharashtra recently in Mumbai that they would accept whatever proposal Maharashtra made with regard to the height of Medigadda. Accordingly, TS accepted to reduce the height of Medigadda barrage to not less than 100 metres.
“At 100 metres FRL, the submergence in Maharashtra will be contained within the stream that joins Godavari. No agriculture land in Maharashtra will be submerged due to the construction of barrage,” an official said.
Telangana officials indicated that they agreed to reduce the height of Medigadda barrage in order to complete the irrigation project as early as possible, without any confrontation with Maharashtra government. “We should not allow irrigation projects to land in inter-state disputes, which will deny water to the TS farmers,” sources said.
However, the final decision regarding the heights of Tummadi Hatti and Medigadda would be officially announced by the Chief Ministers of both States after the second meeting of the Inter-state Board for joint projects between Maharashtra and Telangana states ratify it.
The first board meeting was held in Mumbai when both the States signed an MoU. The second will be held soon in Hyderabad. TS Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Maharashtra Chief Minister Fadnavis will sign MoUs at the Board meeting on these three barrages.
The official level committee meeting held on Saturday also agreed to construct Chanaka-Korata barrage. It was also decided to draw their share of water as per Tribunal awards from these barrages by both the states.
Besides Irrigation engineers from both the States, irrigation principal secretaries SK Joshi (TS) and SM Gawai (MH) also participated in the discussion.