Hyderabad: The irrigation officials of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana indulged in heated exchanges over sharing of Krishna waters at Nagarjunasagar project site in Nalgonda district. After the heated argument, Superintending Engineers of the two States approached Krishna River Management Board (KRMB).
Official sources said that the engineers of Nagarjunasagar project, management of which is controlled by Telangana Government, reduced the quantity of water being released to the NSP Right Canal stating that of the 18.5 TMC ft water allocated to AP by KRMB on February 10, less than one TMC ft was left to be utilised and the remaining quantity would flow down within a few hours.
However, after getting the information that the flow into the Right Canal was reduced, a Superintending Engineer from Macheral in Guntur district rushed to project site and entered into an argument with his Telangana counterpart questioning the latter as to how the flow was reduced when another 4 TMC ft water was due to be drawn by them (AP). The KRMB in its recent meeting had cleared drawl of 18.5 TMC ft by AP and 15.5 TMC ft by Telangana for immediate needs of irrigation and drinking water.
Transmission losses
Over 11,400 cusecs was being let out through Right and Left Canals. When contacted, NSP engineers explained that the release of 9,000 cusecs to Right Canal was gradually reduced to 3,600 cusecs taking into account sharing the transmission and evaporation losses between the two States.
The AP engineers were understood to have argued that based on the water received at the Macherla monitoring station another 4 TMC ft water was due out of 18.5 TMC ft allocated by KRMB recently. They refused to take into account the losses. But, the Telangana engineers contended that they were maintaining records of the outflow the Right Canal head and the allocated quantity including losses.
