Not agreed to hand over projects to KRMB, govt clarifies

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has clarified that it had not accepted handing over of projects on river Krishna to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).

Irrigation department secretary Rahul Bojja said the media carried ‘wrong’ reports on the issue. He reiterated the government is committed to protect the State interests on transferring powers to the board for the project's management .

The official said the government has put some important conditions before the board to accept the demand for handing over of projects. It includes water sharing between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh be done on 50:50 basis until the Krishna Tribunal verdict.

According to the Krishna Tribunal-1 the needs of the Krishna Basin areas should be given first priority. Andhra Pradesh should be permitted to divert only 34 tmcft of krishna water through Pothireddypadu head regulator and only 20% of water used for drinking should be taken into account.

He said the government had also informed the Centre in the meeting held on January 17 in Delhi that the Andhra Pradesh government should stop illegal structures being constructed to divert the river water beyond the permitted limit.

Telangana Engineer-in-Chief ( Irrigation) Muralidhar also pointed out that the Union Jal Shakti ministry did not record some views expressed by the Telangana officials in the meeting on January 19. The minutes recorded that Telangana agreed to complete the process of handing over the identified 15 important project outlets to KRMB within a month and prepare operation protocols related to the implementation project management.