HYDERABAD: Ahead of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) meeting, scheduled to be held on August 27, the government of Telangana wrote two letters to the Board chairman with a request to immediately stop the construction works on Veligonda project taken up by Andhra Pradesh and also account for only 20 per cent of return flows.“Restrain Andhra Pradesh from execution of the unauthorised Veligonda project and adding new components to it which are intended to divert water outside the Krishna river basin,” Telangana Engineer-in- Chief C Muralidhar Rao told the KRMB chairman in the letter.
“The Bachawat Tribunal had not considered any diversion of water from Srisailam reservoir and stipulated that in future, allocation in basin projects should be given priority over outside basin diversions. But, in 1994, disregarding the provisions of Bachawat Tribunal, the erstwhile AP government proposed Veligonda project to divert 3,000 cusecs of flood waters during monsoon to outside basins like Gundlakamma from Srisailam reservoir through a tunnel. In 2005, an additional tunnel was proposed to carry further 8,600 cusecs of floodwaters.
Hence, the diversion capacity was increased from 3,000 cusecs to 11,600 cusecs that is one tmcft per day,” Muralidhar said in the letter. He further said that Telangana has been expressing strong objections to the projects diverting water outside basin from Srisailam reservoir, through Pothireddypadu, SRMC, HNSS, KC canal and Veligonda tunnel project. Taking up surplus-based projects, including Veligonda would be detrimental to the interests of TS projects, serving acute drought prone and fluoride affected areas apart from the settled ayacuts of Nagarjuna Sagar Project command, downstream of Srisailam and drinking water needs of Hyderabad.
In another letter, Muralidhar Rao wanted the Board to account for only 20 per cent of the return flows, which was not being implemented by the KRMB. Due to the delay in taking a decision by KRMB on return flows, Telangana had lost its share of 31.952 tmcft per year, since accounting as 16.5 tmcft for HMWSSB instead of reckoning of 3.3 tmcft and 23.44 tmcft for Mission Bhagiratha instead of reckoning as 4.68 tmcft.