Hyderabad: Telangana irrigation engineer-in-chief C Muralidhar on Wednesday wrote a letter to Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) chairman MP Singh.
In the letter, the chairman has been requested to allow Andhra Pradesh to draw only 34 TMC of water during flood period through PRP Head Regulator and SRMC above +880 ft level.
It was also mentioned that AP was diverting huge quantities of Krishna water illegally through unauthorized structures of Pothireddypadu Head Regulator, Bankacharla Cross Regulator, Escape Regulator (Channel), and Telugu Ganga Link Channel Regulator.
He explained that in the inter-state agreements of 1976 and 1977, all the three riparian States agreed to divert 15 tmc ft water from Srisailam reserviour to Madras (Chennai) for drinking water supply, during July to October, to be conveyed through a open lined canal from Srisailam to Penna designated to carry a discharge not exceeding 1,500 cusecs.
The government of India may be requested to put all the enhancements under the unapproved projects category in schedule-2 of the Gazette Notification of July 15, 2021, engineer-in-chief added.
Out of the total 811 TMC available in the Krishna river, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were allocated water on a 34:66 ratio (299 TMC and 511 TMC).
Both states have water projects on the Krishna river which has been leading to several issues and arguments since 2014 when Telangana was formed.
However, Telangana has been asking for a higher share since 2018, 3 years after it’s bifurcation. Last month, the KRMB held a meeting to discuss various issues with officials from both sides, but it ended in a stalemate.
Telangana officials were unsuccessful in convincing the KRMB to allocate more water for the state. Moreover, on July 15, the Centre passed a gazette according to which the KRMB will take overall projects, essentially meaning that the Centre will be fully incharge