The Krishna River Management Board's refusal to consider Telangana's request for generating power, prompted a walkout by the state's representatives. The board meeting on Wednesday, was convened in the backdrop of claims and counter-claims on sharing of the Krishna river waters, by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. This was the 14th meeting of the KRMB. The five-hour long meeting saw representatives of both states pitching their arguments. Telangana cited geographic reasons behind its compulsion to generate hydel power for agriculture and drinking water purposes. The state's representatives also contended that the Srisailam project was conceived for power generation only.
In response, the Andhra Pradesh representatives explained that their state's interests would suffer if power is generated in the absence of drinking and irrigation requirements in downstream areas. KRMB chairman MP Singh clarified that power generation can be taken up at Srisailam project only when there are water requirements in the Sagar and Krishna delta areas. Not happy with the KRMB decision, the Telangana team staged a walkout from the five-hour long meeting.
Following Telangana's walkout, the meeting was concluded. It can be recalled, in the August first week Telangana higher officials skipped the first-ever joint meeting of the Coordination Committees of the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) and Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) over. The coordination committee was constituted to resolve the ongoing water disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Both the states’ water conflict has reached to another level in the backdrop of the Union government fixing the jurisdiction of the rivers Krishna and Godavari’s Boards through a gazette notification. Telangana government is up against the gazette which is set to come into force from October 14, 2021 alleging threat to the interests of the state. The gazette has brought as many as 107 irrigation projects in Telangana and Andhra on both the Godavari and Krishna rivers under the jurisdiction of the KRMB and GRMB.
With IANS inputs