HYDERABAD: Exactly one week ahead of the deadline for bringing irrigation projects in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana under the purview of the river management boards, Jal Shakti Ministry additional secretary Debashree Mukherjee rushed to Hyderabad on Thursday, October 7, 2021, and held a meeting with the chairmen of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) MP Singh and J Chandrashekhar Iyer, respectively.
After holding an exclusive meeting with them, the officials of the Boards gave him a PowerPoint presentation on the progress of the work so far, since the issuance of the gazette notification on July 15.
Execution from Oct 14?
Without the State governments’ contribution of seed money and the Boards’ information on organisational structure, the chances of implementation of the gazette notification from October 14 are very remote. The Boards failed to meet two deadlines — the first, to submit the organisational structure on August 14, and the second, to collect the seed money of Rs 400 crore each from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The progress of the work had been very slow, and the Boards had decided to conduct meetings on October 12, two days ahead of the deadline. They would once again review the progress and seek cooperation from the irrigation officials of both the States.
According to sources, if the projects were brought under the purview of the Boards on October 14, the process would commence only with regard to four projects, namely Pulichintala, Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam on the Krishna and Peddavagu on the Godavari.
Don’t take rise in NSP ayacut into account: TS witness
Telangana’s witness Ghanshyam Jha said that the unauthorised increase of ayacut under the left canal of Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) should not be considered for water supply. During the cross examination before Brijesh Kumar Tribunal on Thursday, Andhra Pradesh’s advocate disputed Telangana’s statement, which claimed that the ayacut under NSP left canal was 1.3 lakh acres. “The actual ayacut is 3.78 lakh acres,” the counsel said. But the Telangana witness said that only ayacut as per the Nagarjuna Sagar Report of 1954 and Nagarjuna Sagar Estimate of 1956 should be taken into consideration. The changes and increase of ayacut after that should not be taken into account, Jha said. AP had stated that evaporation losses of 33 tmcft in Srisailam reservoir shall not be disturbed as per the decision of the KWDT-II. The witness clarified that while Karnataka had asked for the revision of evaporation losses, KWDT-I had allowed for the same based on the availability of fresh data in future. The witness also said that drinking water for Chennai could be diverted from Prakasam barrage
Only 20% water drawn for domestic purposes: Irrigation officials to KRMB
The State Irrigation officials on Thursday urged the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) to take into account only 20 per cent of the water drawn for domestic and drinking water purposes. In his letter to the KRMB, Telangana Irrigation engineer-in-chief C Muralidhar said that the water utilised for Mission Bhagiratha were from the old sources alone and that the purpose of GO 885, issued in October 2017, was only meant to maintain minimum draw down levels and to ensure that water was drawn only for drinking requirements below those levels. The provision of data for Mission Bhagiratha separately for each of the projects does not arise, he said