HYDERABAD: Requests from Telangana and non-compliance of provisions in Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) forced the Union ministry of jal shakti to defer implementation of the gazette notification for six more months. Two separate gazette notifications for KRMB and GRMB were issued by the Centre on April 1.
This means that both Telangana and AP can take approvals for their pending projects for next six months and complete them. Also, both the states can deposit Rs 200 crore each to KRMB and GRMB for their functioning. The latest deadline is July 2022.
The jal shakti ministry had issued gazette notifications separately for Krishna and Godavari river boards taking over all irrigation projects, including barrages, canals and reservoirs, on July 15, 2021 and announced it would come into effect from October 15, 2021.
According to the gazette notifications, Telangana and AP have to deposit Rs 200 crore seed money each within 60 days of the notification to discharge their functions effectively. But, none of the governments had paid the seed money. For all ongoing, unapproved works — full or partial, governments have to obtain approvals from the Centre and agencies concerned by submitting detailed project reports within six months or else they ceased to operate. “Telangana submitted DPRs of six projects on Godavari projects and sought approvals. The government has been claiming that since final allocation of Krishna waters has not been done, it hasen’t sought any approval for the projects taken up on Krishna river from the KRMB and the jal shakti ministry,” officials of Telangana irrigation department said.
Even on some projects on Godavari and Krishna river basins, Telangana has been arguing and even written letters saying that various irrigation projects which were included in the gazette notification were taken up prior to the bifurcation of the state and now listed as new projects, especially 11 projects on Godavari basin.
The government claimed that of 967 tmcft allocation in Godavari, projects for 758 tmcft were cleared by the Central Water Commission and water availability has been cleared by hydrological directorate for another 148 tmcft.
