Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday suggested that the Centre to take over all the offtakes of common reservoirs constructed on Krishna river and provide them security with Central Industrial Security Force to safeguard the interests of Andhra Pradesh.
“I request that necessary immediate action be taken by the Government of India to notify the jurisdiction of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and take over all offtakes of common reservoirs with CISF protection and safeguard the interests of the State of Andhra Pradesh,” Jagan said in his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also wrote a similar letter to Union Jal Sakthi minister Gajendra Singh Shekawat, as decided at the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.
The chief minister also requested the intervention of the Prime Minister to give a direction to Telangana to stop illegal drawal of water for power generation without water release orders from KRMB.
He also wanted that the unauthorised drawal of water for power generation be accounted for as utilisation by Telangana against of 299 TMC allocated to it, as per the water sharing agreement between the two states in June 2015.
As per the agreement, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana would get 512 TMC and 299 TMC out of the total allocation of 811 TMC of water allocated to the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh by KWDT-1 at 75% dependability.
The States of AP and Telangana are sharing water in the ratio of 66: 34 on adhoc basis by deducting Minor Irrigation utilisations, evaporation losses and Godavari diversions, he pointed out.
He alleged that Telangana was blatantly violating this agreement and the orders of the KRMB, which is the implementation authority.
“Water releases shall be regulated as per the inflows observed into the reservoirs, available storages and pro-rata entitlements from time to time. But Telangana was drawing water unauthorisedly putting Andhra Pradesh in a tremendous disadvantage position,” Jagan pointed out.
