BRS alleges Andhra drawing excess Krishna water while Telangana farmers face crisis
HYDERABAD: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has accused the Congress government in Telangana of failing to protect the interests of farmers, alleging that neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is drawing large quantities of water from the common Srisailam reservoir. The party claimed that farmers in Telangana are being left without assured irrigation for the current season, even as water is diverted to projects outside the Krishna basin in Andhra Pradesh.
At a press conference on Monday, former minister S. Niranjan Reddy, along with former legislators B. Harshavardhan Reddy, G. Jaipal Yadav, G. Kishore Kumar and others, demanded that the state government operate the pumps of the Kalwakurthy and Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation schemes, as well as those based on the Jurala project, to ensure at least one assured crop this year.
Reddy stated that Jurala receives up to 5,000 cusecs of regenerated water from the Almatti and Narayanpur projects in Karnataka, even if those projects do not release water explicitly. He argued that the Telangana government has no valid reason to deny farmers water for irrigation during the current season.
The BRS leader alleged that Andhra Pradesh has been diverting substantial quantities of water from Srisailam once its level reaches 854 feet, noting that the current level stands at 875.8 feet. He reminded reporters that the Srisailam project was originally built for hydro-electric generation. Later, he said, Andhra Pradesh constructed the Pothireddypadu Head Regulator, initially intended to provide drinking water to Chennai and irrigation for about 2 lakh acres along the way.
According to Reddy, the capacity of the head regulator has been enhanced multiple times over the years, allowing Andhra Pradesh to divert large volumes of Krishna water to areas outside the Krishna basin, at the expense of regions within the basin in Telangana. He further claimed that Andhra Pradesh has constructed reservoirs with a combined storage capacity of 235 tmc ft without valid water allocations or clearances.
The BRS demanded that the Congress-led Telangana government take immediate steps to protect the state's share of Krishna river water and ensure that farmers in the affected districts receive water for cultivation.
The allegations come amid broader debates over inter-state river water sharing and the implementation of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal awards. No immediate response was available from the Congress government or Andhra Pradesh authorities to the charges made by the BRS leaders.
