HYDERABAD: Telangana on Friday made it very clear that the TS projects on Godavari, to which Andhra Pradesh had taken an objection to, were not ‘new’ but were sanctioned by the government even before the bifurcation of the State.
Telangana Principal Secretary, Irrigation, Rajat Kumar said that they were using their allocated water in Godavari as per their requirements for the ‘old’ projects.
The TS official gave a detailed and effective explanation on each and every project raised by AP at the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) meeting held at Jala Soudha here.
The GRMB, however, asked TS to submit the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of all the projects so that they would get an idea.
The Board also directed the AP government to submit supplementary DPRs of the new projects. AP recently lodged a complaint with GRMB, stating that TS was taking up nine new projects without the approval of the Board, the Central Water Commission or the Apex Council. But, Telangana did not lodge any complaint against any project taken up by the AP government in the meeting.
TS has 967 TMCFT: Rajat Kumar
TS Irrigation Principal Secretary stated that when N Kiran Kumar Reddy was the CM of erstwhile AP, he announced that the allocation to TS in Godavari was 967.14 tmcft. “The seventh clause of the Bachawat Tribunal permitted to use Godavari water allocated to a particular state to anywhere within the state. We are using our quota of water as per our requirements,” Rajat Kumar said in the meeting. On the objections of the AP that though the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme was sanctioned to lift 225 tmcft and TS was diverting 450 tmcft now, Rajat Kumar explained that the Nizam Sagar and SRSP which got a combined allocation of 243 tmcft, never got more than 50 or 60 tmcft in their history, due to the projects constructed by the upper riparian states.
Pattiseema compensation
The TS official also raised that when the AP was diverting Godavari waters to Krishna basin through Pattiseema, TS should get 45 tmcft water above Nagarjuna Sagar Project in Krishna river.
“We hope that the GRMB will take an appropriate decision. If not, we will approach the Apex Council,” said Rajat. GRMB chairman J Chandrasekhar Iyer said that TS officials agreed to submit the DPRs of the ‘new’ projects. The AP government agreed to supplement the remaining DPRS of the new projects. Both the States were asked to submit the DPRs by June 10.
KRMB asks TS to stop projects sans clearances
Vijayawada: A letter written by the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) directing Telangana not to go ahead with projects including Palamuru-Rangareddy, Dindi, Bhakta Ramadasu, and Thummilla lift,following a letter written by Andhra Pradesh, has emerged days after it was sent. According to the communication dated May 30, the KRMB said that it was directed by the Union Jal Shakti Ministry to convey that no new projects could be taken up sans requisite permissions. “Since no new project could be taken up without sanctions, the action of the Telangana government taking up new projects on Krishna river without appraisal by the KRMB and without sanction from the apex council...is violative of Section 84 and Para 7 of the eleventh schedule of APRA, 2014.