Kaleshwaram,Sita Rama lift irrigation projects are in violation: AP

Hyderabad: A member of the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB), P.S. Kutiyal, in a letter to the principal secretary of Telangana's irrigation department, has said that new projects taken up by the Telangana government are in violation of the AP Reorganisation Act 2014.

In the letter, P.S Kutiyal has quoted a previous letter by the AP government dated 14 May. “In the letter, the government of AP has submitted the utilisation under existing, ongoing, future and new projects to be taken up by both the states on Godavari river and stated that there is hardly any water for projects to be taken up by both states under 75% dependability."

The letter further states that the state of Telangana is executing new projects without furnishing the DPRs to the GRMB and approval of the Apex Council. The projects in question are the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, GLIS Phase III, Sita Rama lift irrigation scheme, Tupakulagudem, Telangana drinking water supply project, barrages on lower Penganga river, and Ramappa lake to Pakkal lake diversion.

The letter also said that the Andhra Pradesh government has already said that the construction of several barrages and schemes without any detailed studies regarding the negative impact on the availability of water as per the GWDT Award for the lower down projects is in violation of the AP Reorganization Act 2014.

The AP government has also mentioned in its previous letter that the Telangana government has enhanced its utilisation of water from the Kaleshwaram project and Sita Rama lift irrigation scheme. The letter stated that the list of projects given by AP in its previous letter was discussed in the 8th meeting of the GRMB held in August 2019. However, in the light of the discussions, the details of the project are still to be made available to GRMB by the state of Telangana.

The letter asks the Telangana government to immediately furnish its view on the letter of Andhra Pradesh special chief secretary of the water resource department and furnish copies of the detailed project reports/details of the projects mentioned above.