India News | T'gana CM Asks Officials to Complain to Centre over Andhra 'unilaterally' Drawing Water

Hyderabad, Feb 17 (PTI) Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday asked officials to lodge a complaint with the Centre against neighbouring Andhra Pradesh for allegedly drawing water unilaterally from the shared projects.

Reddy, who held a meeting with Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy and officials, said the responsibility of allocation of water between the two states and calculating the consumption of water by them lies with the Central Water Commission.

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"The CM also asked the officials to lodge a complaint with the Union government against the shifting of water by Andhra Pradesh unilaterally. The CM said that the Central government should take the responsibility of stopping Andhra Pradesh from the excess utilization of water against the allocations," an official release said.

The CM instructed irrigation officials to be alert in utilising Krishna river water from Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects (both shared by the two states), it said.

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The CM asserted that telemetry system (measuring data on water usage) is the only solution to prevent Andhra Pradesh from allegedly utilising water excess of its share.

The officials brought to the notice of the CM that the "Andhra Pradesh government is not coming forward to pay its share of funds" required for the installation of the telemetry system.

The chief minister instructed Principal Secretary (Irrigation) Rahul Bojja to write a letter to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) immediately informing that all the funds required for the implementation of the telemetry system would be initially paid by the Telangana government.

The KRMB should take steps to put in place the telemetry system immediately.

The CM also instructed officials to release water to the crops as per a plan from various projects in the state in view of summer.

The irrigation officials have been asked to take appropriate precautions by assessing severe hot conditions during summer in advance.

The CM instructed the district Collectors to take special initiatives to provide drinking water and irrigation water to the people without any hurdles, the release added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)