Telangana Assembly Passes Resolution Seeks Conditions for Centre to Hand Over Krishna River Projects
The Telangana State Legislative Assembly today passed a resolution seeking the Centre to hand over common projects on River Krishna to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) only if some conditions are met. Moving the resolution, State Irrigation Minister Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy explained that the Krishna River is the lifeline of the regions of southern Telangana both for irrigation and drinking water purposes.
He said that sufficient attention was not given to the requirements of the Krishna Basin after the separate Telangana state was formed. He alleged that the previous government did injustice to the maximum extent and agreed for an unfair ratio of water sharing between the two Telugu states, which is 299 Thousand million cubic feet (TMC) to Telangana and 512 TMC to Andhra Pradesh.
The Minister slammed the opposition BRS for spreading misinformation on projects being handed over to KRMB and stated that the then government proposed to hand over the common projects, Srisailam Dam and Nagarjunasagar Dam, to the control of KRMB, which is detrimental to the interests of Telangana.
The House resolved that in-basin needs should be met first, and outside basin diversions from the Srisailam reservoir will be limited to specific amounts, like 15 TMC for Chennai water supply and 19 TMC for Srisailam Right Bank Canal approved by Central Water Commission. The House also resolved to request the Government of India to withdraw the CRPF and hand over the control of the project to the Telangana Government.
The resolution also sought that the use towards drinking water to be reckoned as 20 percent of drawal towards consumptive use as stipulated by tribunal-I. The House resolved that the States will be permitted to carry over water to the next year and will not be accounted as used in the next year’s account. The House also resolved that the unauthorized construction of projects, expansions and new components diverting Krishna water to outside the basin will not be permitted strictly unless approved by CWC.
The Irrigation Minister pointed out that on the previous night of November 29th of last year, the Government of AP forcibly took over the control of the right side of Nagarjunasagar Dam by sending police force. He reminded that till then it was under the control of Telangana. It may be recalled that the Central Government intervened and sent CRPF to remove the AP Police.
