HYDERABAD: The Telangana Irrigation officials wrote two more letters to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), on Tuesday, with a request to omit the NSLC, till the finalisation of KWDT-2 and also restrain Andhra Pradesh from taking up of Chitravati project.
In his letters, Irrigation Department Engineer-in-Chief C Muralidhar told KRMB that the Nagarjuna Sagar Left Canal (NSLC) was modified by the then AP from time to time, disregarding the lower Krishna project (Nandikonda project). The NS left canal was originally proposed to irrigate 1.3 lakh acres ayacut in AP, up to Kattalerlu stream in Nandigama Taluq of Madras state (now in AP). However, the AP government extended the left canal beyond Kattaleru river and the ayacut was extended from 1.3 lakh acres to 3.78 lakh acres.
“Unfortunately, at the same time, the area in Telangana was reduced from 6.6 lakh acres to 6.02 lakh acres. Moreover, erstwhile AP modified alignment of the NSP left canal by lowering the sill level of the NSLC at Paleru reservoir, resulting in a loss of 13 feet head thereby causing considerable reduction in the planned ayacut in TS,” Muralildhar explained to KRMB.
“In view of this, the KRMB is requested to inform Ministry of Jal Shakti to omit the project components of NSLC mentioned in the gazette (item 4.8 to 4.14) from the Schedule-2, till the finalisation of KWDT-II Award and the water utilisation shall be restricted up to Kattaleru river and those areas shall be irrigated through alternate sources such as Chintalapudi LIS etc,” Muralidhar said.
Stop power stations
In another letter, Muralidhar recalled that TS had requested KRMB to restrain AP from going ahead with Pinnapuram pumped storage hydel power project, on Krishna river. “To the utter dismay of Telangana, it is learnt that the work is still going on,” he said. He objected to AP’s Chitravati pumped storage hydroelectric project (500 MW) located at villages Peddakotla and Parnapalli, in Anantapuram district.
“AP has proposed continuing pumped storage hydro-electric projects utilising the water diverted from Krishna basin to Penna basin under GNSS and HNSS etc, by depriving the in-basin needs. It is also pertinent to State that there is no allocation of water to the GNSS and HNSS by KWDT-I. Further, it is to note that AP has not pleaded for dependable water allocation to these projects before KWDT-II. In view of this, it is requested to restrain AP from taking up of the Chitravati scheme and other schemes which draw water from Srisailam,” he said.