- Not ready to leave lakes and outlets
- Telangana, AP stubborn in Godavari, Krishna river Board meetings
Hyderabad, Velugu: The jurisdiction of Krishna and Godavari Boards has been finalized in the KRMB, GRMB meetings held in Jala Soudha on Sunday with both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh giving their nod. As per the agreement, the head regulators of common projects will go into the jurisdiction of Krishna Board and also the Sunkesula and RDS, which are now under Tungabadra Board. However, both the States have categorically stated that except the head regulators, main lakes and outlets under them would be retained by them. Peddavagu, the common project, is the only one that would go into the jurisdiction of Godavari Board. The Telangana government has also said that the Hydal projects will not be handed over to the Board and except the common projects nothing will be given to it. A decision will be taken regarding them in the meetings to be held on Monday and Tuesday.
The Godavari sub- committee meeting was under the GRMB member secretary BP Pandey and the Krishna Board sub-committee meeting was led by KRMB member Ravikumar Pillai, attended by Mohan Kumar (Telangana) and Srinivas Reddy ( Andhra Pradesh) and other engineers. In the meeting the Andhra Pradesh Chief Engineer requested that all the projects built by Telangana on Godavari should be brought under the jurisdiction of the Board to which Telangana objected and questioned that where was the need to bring Godavari projects over which there no contentions. The Telangana chief engineer suggested that Davaleswaram, Polavaram, Pattiseema and Purushothamapatnam projects in Andhra Pradesh should be brought under the control of the Board, this was out rightly rejected by the neighboring state. However agreeing to hand over the control Peddavagu common project, both the states accepted to bear the cost of managing the ayacut of the project (85percent in AP, 15percent in Telangana) proportionately. But on the salaries of the staff they agreed to bear the burden equally.
As the gazette regarding the projects is going to be implemented from 14th of this month, the Krishna and Godavari Boards have decided to start the issue from common projects. It is learnt that the Central Jal Shakti Ministry has already given clear indications as to how to go about on the projects. As per the indications both the Boards want to bring to their fold the main outlets over which there are no contentions an take up the other issues in the second phase. Since the management of the projects has become burdensome due to lack of sufficient funds, both the states are going to insist the release of seed money in the full board meetings. In the sub-committee meetings it has been decided to resolve the common projects issue first and later on to take up the remaining projects in the second phase.
