Andhra, Telangana spar over water levels

The bonhomie between the sibling states of Andhra and Telangana seems to be short-lived with the irrigation departments of the states coming to blows.

Telangana irrigation department lodged a complaint with the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) that the AP irrigation authorities had denied permission to the joint inspection team to collect discharge measurements from Pothireddipadu headwater regulator in AP that takes water to Rayalaseema region.

Telangana irrigation engineer-in-chief C Muralidhar in his 3-page strongly-worded complaint charged the AP irrigation officials with showing un-matching measurements.

“ADCP (acoustic Doppler current profiler) readings are matching with telemetry readings but are not tallying with the readings of Andhra Pradesh," he alleged.

“The KRMB is requested to take action in the matter immediately as otherwise, the entire system will lose its credibility”, Muralidhar wrote.

Andhra Pradesh irrigation secretary Adityanath Das made no comments.

AP Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao had resolved to solve all pending issues on a give and take basis amicably. They had agreed to build a 400-km link canal between Godavari and Srisailam project to save Rayalaseema. However, the intentions of the leaders did not percolate to ground level.