HYDERABAD: A meeting of the three-member committee, constituted by the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), did not take place as scheduled on Monday, as Irrigation Engineer-in-Chief of AP, Venkateswara Rao, did not turn up for the meeting.
The meeting, which was convened to discuss and take a decision on the release of Krishna water to the sibling states of AP and Telangana till July, has now been postponed to a later date.
Venkateswara Rao could not attend the meeting as he had to accompany a team of experts which inspected the Polavaram project. Meanwhile, the officials of Telangana asked the KRMB to release 10.26 tmcft of water till the end of July for the state’s drinking water needs.
Engineer-in-Chief G Anil Kumar and other officials wanted the release of 300 cusecs from the Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme for the combined Mahbubnagar district, 750 cusecs from AMRP to meet the drinking water requirements of Hyderabad and the erstwhile Nalgonda district, and 300 cusecs from the Nagarjunasagar Project to meet the needs of the erstwhile Khammam.
They also asked the KRMB to stop AP from drawing water from the Macchumarri scheme. Pumping below 510 feet in Nagarjunasagar was not advisable, and AP should not draw water unofficially anymore, they said.
Tribunal meet deferred
Meanwhile, the meeting convened by Union Jal Shakti Minister CR Patil in Delhi on May 7 regarding the publication of the gazette notification of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II (Brijesh Kumar Tribunal) award was postponed.