HYDERABAD: Telangana senior counsel CS Vaidyanathan on Wednesday submitted the water requirements of Telangana as per the Statement of Case of Telangana before Justice Brijesh Kumar’s Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II. He stated that AP will not be deprived of its due share but it seeks only fair and equitable apportionment of water between the two sibling states.
When Justice Brijesh Kumar enquired about how much water is going outside basin, Vaidyanathan stated that of the 512 tmcft internal arrangement made by the erstwhile AP, 323 tmcft is diverted to outside basin and only 189 tmcft is utilised inside basin.
The counsel also stated that allocating 555 tmcft of the 75 percent dependable water, AP will not get affected for its inside basin utilisations.
The counsel stated there were additional sources available for projects of AP and therefore, the water thus saved will be available for Telangana within the basin.
For the Krishna Delta System of AP, 43.2 tmcft of water is available under the drains and 80 tmcft Godavari water from diversion through Polavaram project are available, the Telangana advocate said.
Further, the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme has also been constructed by AP downstream of the Polavaram dam site, which has been serving the Krishna Delta System (KDS) since 2015.
In one of the years this scheme has transferred more than 100 tmcft water per year to Krishna Delta System. It was also informed to the Tribunal that during acute deficit year of 2023-24, KDS has utilised about 125 tmcft when the inflows at Srisailam were about 145 tmcft only. Of the 125 tmcft, Pattiseema LIS contributed a transfer of about 40 tmcft to KDS, Vaidyananthan explained.
Telangana counsel informed that Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) was proposed as 150 tmcft scheme to serve the Nalgonda, Warangal and Khammam districts by gravity.
But the erstwhile AP did not press for allocation to this scheme before KWDT-I and rather preferred allocation to outside basin projects of Andhra.
It was also brought to the notice of the KWDT-II that the Srisailam Right Bank Canal (SRBC) of AP, which proposed to serve outside basin, and Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC), which proposed to serve inside basin areas, were taken up at the same time in early 1980s by issuing government orders but AP preferred to reallocate assured water of 75 percent dependability to SRBC whereas SLBC was earmarked surplus water.
Later, before KWDT-II, rather than asking for dependable water for SRBC, the erstwhile AP vehemently urged allocation of water to Telugu Ganga Project which too is serving outside basin areas, the Telangana counsel said. The Tribunal will hear further arguments by the Telangana counsel from April 15 to 17.