Vijayawada: An important meeting will be held on Saturday under the leadership of the secretary to the Union water resources department to resolve the water disputes between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Krishna water.
Abhiram Kumar, under secretary, issued the notice to AP and Telangana states on Friday for the meeting to resolve the issues relating to Nagarjunasagar Dam.
The notice stated that a meeting aimed at diffusing the existing tension between the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on the issues of sharing of Krishna river waters and also to discuss the issues related to the transfer of the operation of Nagarjunasagar Dam and Srisailam dam/reservoirs along with all related structures to KRMB.
This meeting has been scheduled on December 2 at 11 am in hybrid mode in Room 412, Shram Shakti Bhawan, New Delhi.
Meanwhile, AP officials said Telengana is resorting to unauthorised withdrawals time and again. Though the Right Head Sluice of NSP is in the territory of AP, the Telangana state took control of the same and established four check posts manned by their security forces and is not allowing the officers of AP access to the Right head sluice though it lies in the territory of Andhra Pradesh,” they said.
“Further, the power connections to operate the sluice gates of Right main Canal, which were charged from the APTransco authorities, were unauthorisedly disconnected by Telangana state and they connected it to TSTransco on the left side,” AP has complained.
The apex council was formed as per Section 84 of the A.P.R Act, 2014 consisting of the minister of water resources as its chairperson and the chief ministers of both the states as its members.
During its 2nd meeting held on October 6, 2020, it was agreed by all the stakeholders to utilise 811tmc ft of water allocated to erstwhile AP in the ratio of 512tmc and 299tmc respectively as per the Krishna Water DisputesTribunal-1 award.
There were several requests from AP in the last nine years to rectify the injustice done to AP. These were not responded to. The ineffective implementation of the notification of the board jurisdiction of KRMB for the last three years is also a reason for the public losing confidence in the system, AP officials averred.
“Keeping all these in view and to protect the legitimate interests of the people of AP, we are left with no option except to take over the control of facilities located at the territory of AP from the control of illegal occupation of Telangana,” they stressed.
They alleged that the “indifferent attitude” of Telangana forced AP to restore its “legitimate rights” to control of the facilities existing on the right bank of NSP in the territory of AP during early hours of November 30, 2023. This was done peacefully without causing any incidents,” the AP officials added.
