HYDERABAD: Determined not to deviate from its stand, the Telangana Irrigation Department on Monday reiterated that the Minimum Draw Down Level (MDDL) of the Srisailam Dam should be at 530 feet. Telangana also opposed the sharing of hydel power at Srisailam on a 50:50 ratio with Andhra Pradesh. With this, a consensus eludes the framing of rule curves for the Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar projects.
The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) constituted the Reservoir Management Committee (RMC) six months ago to finalise the rule curves for the two projects on river Krishna.
Telangana on Monday demanded that the RMC report should be kept in abeyance and disagreed with the proposals of Andhra Pradesh and KRMB on the proposed rule curves.
Telangana officials repeatedly stated that the MDDL of Srisailam should be 530 feet while AP has been demanding that the MDDL should be fixed at 854 feet.
“At 854 feet level, AP can draw more water out of the basin than its permissible share of water. We are not agreeing to this proposal. AP is entitled to draw only 34 tmcft water from Srisailam (project) and not more than that,” a Telangana official told TNIE.
TS rejects 50:50 power sharing: Officials
At the latest RMC meeting held on Saturday, Telangana officials didn’t agree to any proposals put forth by either the AP or KRMB. “We did not sign the minutes of the RMC meeting on Saturday. The sharing of hydel power on a 50:50 ratio between AP and Telangana cannot be decided at the RMC meeting. It is a policy matter and (Telangana) Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has to take a final call on it. There is no truth that the Telangana officials have agreed to 50:50 power sharing,” an official asserted.
The RMC, which was constituted in May, is supposed to submit its report within 15 days. However, with no consensus between AP and TS, the KRMB is now in a fix. Telangana officials, in the past, had informed the KRMB that the draft rule curves ‘unilaterally’ prepared by the CWC were ‘erroneous’ and didn’t conform to the Bachawat Tribunal Award.
During the meeting on Saturday, Telangana officials said that they would get back to the RMC only after consulting the State government. Telangana officials, however, skipped the RMC meeting on Monday and indicated their stand through a letter to KRMB.
As some KRMB officials projected that Telangana officials agreed to the draft rule curves, Telangana Special Chief Secretary (Irrigation) Rajat Kumar, in a letter to the KRMB chairman on Monday, said: “It is to be clarified that there is no change in Telangana’s stand on the issues of water sharing, power sharing, carryover storage, consumptive use of drinking water and accounting of floodwaters, which were already communicated to the KRMB through several letters in the past”.
Not in the interest of TS
“It is felt that none of the issues as drafted in the RMC report are in the interest of Telangana and any agreement, without our claims, is going to definitely play against the case of Telangana before KWDT-II (Brijesh Kumar Tribunal). Hence, the draft report and recommendations of the RMC are not acceptable to Telangana and they should be kept in abeyance,” Rajat Kumar told the KRMB chairman.
RMC MEETING INCONCLUSIVE
“With no officials from Telangana side attending the meeting on Monday, there was nothing to be discussed. Though Telangana has agreed on three issues — modification of rule curves pertaining to Srisailam reservoir, power production and the definition of diversion of Krishna river water —it appears they are not in agreement,” AP Engineer-in- Chief Narayana Reddy said