KRMB Drops a Bomb: Used Telangana Funds To Monitor AP’s Krishna Water Use for Salaries
Board uses funds meant for Krishna River monitoring to pay staff salaries
Hyderabad: Telangana’s plans to keep a close watch on Andhra Pradesh’s use of Krishna river water by way of having the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) install telemetry devices appear to have been washed away, at least temporarily.
The KRMB on Tuesday dropped a bombshell on Telangana, saying that it was using for staff salaries, the Rs 4.15 crore that the state had paid for the telemetry devices under Phase II for monitoring of river water use by AP.
In a letter on Tuesday to the engineers in chief (ENCs) of the irrigation departments of the two states, the KRMB said, “this Board has been facing an acute financial crisis even in meeting salary expenditure. The staff salaries are being paid by a temporary diversion of available Rs 4.15 cr of Government of Telangana for the Telemetry Phase-II.”
It said that Phase-I telemetry was under an annual maintenance contract (AMC) till 31.03.2027, and this ongoing financial year alone involves an AMC liability of about Rs 23.3 lakh.
The KRMB had estimated as Rs 7.01 crore, the cost of installing telemetry devices at nine locations as part of Phase-II monitoring and both states were expected to share the cost equally. With AP not coming forward to do so, Telangana said it would foot the cost and released Rs 4.15 crore as the first instalment.
The development comes as a setback to Telangana, which has been at loggerheads with Andhra Pradesh and has been relying on KRMB to keep a watch on how much Krishna water is being used by the neighbouring state. Telangana had proposed Phase-III of telemetry and installation of 11 devices but this was opposed by Andhra Pradesh.
The KRMB, in its letter, said the acute financial crisis the Board was facing was on account of AP and Telangana not releasing their shares of the operational costs of the Board, which was discussed at the 19th meeting of KRMB on January 1, 2025.
The board said both states agreed to release funds totalling Rs 23.314 crore for operational expenses and salaries of the KRMB board members and staff. “But during the past three quarters of this financial year so far, no fund has been released by either of the party states,” the board informed the ENCs of the two states.
“The party states are requested to immediately release the funds,” the letter said.
