Hyderabad: The Krishna River Management Board has convened a special meeting on February 8 on the request of TS, which has threatened not to dishonour the Board’s directives with regard to any further releases of water to AP in the present water year, stating that AP has already drawn more than it legitimate share.
KRMB member-secretary Sameer Chatterjee on Thursday confirmed the Board meeting on February 8 with two state officials who will discuss and decide on three issues.
Apart from setting up telemetry gauge points at specific places in both the states on the rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra to estimate water flow for accurate release to both the states and approval of operation manual of the water release, the main agenda of the Board is to take a decision on further releases to TS and AP for Rabi crop and drinking water needs till the onset of the monsoon.
“We will have to find a way out on further releases as water levels at Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar are depleted due to excess usage for late khariff crops. We have to see drinking water needs in both the states are met at least till onset of monsoon,” Mr Chatterjee said.
TS Chief Secretary (irrigation) S.K. Joshi, in a recent letter to the KRMB said: “Any future water release orders issued by KRMB unilaterally releasing any quantity to AP in the current water year will be difficult to be honoured”.
TS also raised an objection on the 10th Releasing Order of KRMB dated January 18, 2017, stating AP is entitled to only 9.36 tmc water instead of 11 TMC allotted by Board.
Mr Joshi said that in all, the Board had issued 10 releasing orders and taking into the total quantum, 184.09 tmc ft water has been so far released to AP against 75.91 tmc ft released to TS. This took the total release to 260 tmc ft so far in the current water year.
He said there is about 29 tmc ft utilisable water in Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs; based on these calculations, the share of TS was 106.55 tmc ft as against releases made so far by the KRMB. “Of the 29 tmc ft available in two reservoirs, 30.64 tmc ft is TS’ share,” Mr Joshi said.
