Telangana urges KRMB to allow reliable water supply for SLBCs

The Telangana government has requested the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) to allow the use of 45 tmc feet of additional dependable water as per the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal award. Polavaram Project.

In a letter addressed to river board chairman MP Singh on Thursday, Telangana’s engineer-in-chief (general-irrigation) C. Muralidhar said Telangana wants to use such water for the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project. He brought to the notice of Mr. Singh that Telangana has been requesting the Center for this for a long time and it has also written to the Board five times.

As per the AP’s agreement before GWDT in August 1978, the water from the Polavaram project would be used within the Krishna basin and that too in Nagarjunasagar or upstream of Telangana in lieu of diversion of 80 tmc ft into the Krishna delta system. In addition, in 2007 the then AP government increased the ayacut under SLBC from 3 lakh acres to 4 lakh acres, increasing the use of unheated water from 30 tmc ft to 40 tmc ft.

A state-level technical advisory committee from Andhra Pradesh recommended in 2013 that SLBC be allotted 30 tmc ft of water available over Nagarjunasagar for use over Nagarjunasagar in lieu of diverting Godavari water from the Polavaram project into the Krishna delta. can be done. The same committee had also recommended lifting of 16.5 tmc ft of water from the banks of Nagarjunasagar at Akkampalli to meet the drinking needs of frequent fluoride affected areas in Nalgonda district and Hyderabad city.

Together, the water requirement of SLBC will be 45 TMC ft to meet the requirements of Ayakat and drinking water. The technical panel had also noted that schemes like SRBC and Chennai Water Supply were allocated assured water along with SLBCs, though assured water was not given to in-basin SLBCs. Further, KWDT-I had also stipulated that while allocating water for future needs, priority should be given to use within the basin.