Acrimony over projects at Godavari Board meet

Hyderabad: The first meeting of reconstituted Godavari River Management Board held on Thursday witnessed some anxious moments with officials of both TS and AP states raising objections over taking up of major projects by the other state, without providing the requisite information to each other.

However, GRMB chairman Ram Sharan managed to pacify the warring officials and convinced them to exchange information on the projects taken up by both the governments.

The meeting also witnessed an objection over the presence of TS irrigation advisor R. Vidyasagar in the meeting. Mr Vidyasagar represented TS along with principal secretary S.K. Joshi and engineer-in-chief C. Muralidhar.

Mr Joshi explained that Mr Vidyasagar was present in his capacity of being a technical member and he had attended all Krishna River Management Board meetings held earlier.

The issue of AP taking up the Pattiseema lift irrigation project with a capacity of 8,000 cusecs and diverting Godavari waters to Krishna basin was raised by TS officials.

AP principal secretary for irrigation B. Adityanath Das explained that the project was part of the Polavaram multipurpose dam and canals and AP was only diverting the water on a temporary basis. He said that the water being diverted would otherwise go into the sea.

At this, Mr Vidyasagar intervened and sought evidence that Pattiseema was found any mention in the Polavaram project report.

It was then the turn of AP officials seeking clarifications from TS officials by raising the issue of re-engineering and re-designing of Godavari-based projects, that too without providing them any information with regard to water availability and utilisation.

They said that they being a lower riparian state, it will be in a problem after completion of the projects by TS.

Mr Muralidhar explained that so far, no detailed project reports were readied and hence at this stage they were not bound to share any information.

He insisted that AP did not provide them the DPR though the Pattiseema scheme was already launched. At this stage the Board chairman intervened and pacified the officials.