Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao with Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
Hyderabad: Taking strong objection to the unapproval of 11 water projects in Godavari basin in his state, the Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao today wrote to the Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, urging him to take “immediate action” drop these projects from the unapproved list.
In the letter, Rao submitted that the 11 projects mentioned as unapproved in Godavari basin in the Gazette Notification dated July 15, 2021 were started before formation of Telangana and were “well within the 967.94 [Thousand Million Cubic] TMC share” of the state. He claimed that out of this allocation, projects from 758.76 TMC are already cleared by the Central Water Commission and water availability had been cleared by Hydrology Directorate for another 148.82 future projects, evaporation losses among other things.
In this context, the Chief Minister wrote that it was informed that 85 TMC was allocated to Inchampalli Project according to the Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal (GWDT) Award and the Interstate agreement among states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. He claimed that while the Indira Sagar and Rajiv Sagar projects were given in-principle allocation of 16 TMC each, the Devadula Lift Irrigation Scheme (LIS) in Warangal District was allocated 38 TMC and all relevant clearances were also obtained. “Thus a total of 155 TMC allocation was obtained from CWC for these four projects.
Rao wrote that in lieu of these four projects, the Telangana government had decided to take up the Sitaramana Project with an allocation of 70 MC, Devadula LIS with barrage at Tupakulgudem, with 60 TMC, Mukteshwar (Chinna Kaleshwaram) LIS with 4.5 TMC, Ramappa – Pakhala Link with 3 TMC, Modikunta Vagu with 2.14 TMC and Chowtupally Hanumantha Reddy LIS with 0.8 TMC.
While pointing out that all this totalled to 140.44 TMC as reserve, Rao wrote that as these projects were taken up by Telangana State out of water allocations already approved by CWC, their detailed project reports (DPRs) “may be expeditiously approved”.
The Chief Minister also clarified that the additional 1 TMC/day of Kaleshwaram Project was neither an additional nor a new project but had been taken up with state government funds to utilise the 240 TMC allocation made to the Kaleshwaram project by CWC, within a shorter time period. He said that it did not require any approval of the Central government. Moreover, he said, the Kandakurthy LIC was a “minor” scheme serving am ayacut of 3300 acres and did not require any appraisal.
He further claimed that while the Ramappa Pakhal Link and the Tupakulagudem barrage which are part of the Devadula Project did not require any approval, the Gudem LIS was part of the approved Kaddam Project, constructed to “serve the tail end areas” and did not need any further approval.
– global bihari bureau
