The water war between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana appears to be hotting up with the authorities of both the States stepping up security on their respective sides at the Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam dams.
Tempers have been rising for the last one week over Telangana drawing water from the dams for generating power allegedly in violation of the guidelines in place.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh had already flagged its concerns. The State Cabinet had on Wednesday resolved to take it up with the Prime Minister. The Water Resources Minister had even said that the government would not hesitate to retaliate to protect the interests of the State.
‘A.P. engineers turned away’
A tense situation prevailed on Thursday when the engineers from Andhra Pradesh were allegedly turned away by their Telangana counterparts when they approached them to submit memorandums.
Police personnel from Guntur were deployed in large numbers at the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in view of the tense situation. A large posse of police personnel from Telangana was also deployed at the dam.
Superintendent of Police, Guntur Rural, Vishal Gunni, visited the dam site and monitored the situation. About 150 Civil, APSP, AR and ANS special forces were deployed at the dam.
“The police personnel are present to avoid any untoward incident and we are monitoring the situation every hour. The situation is normal now, and we will continue to monitor it. The DSP and RDO of Gurazala will also be monitoring the situation,” said Mr. Vishal Gunni.
At Srisailam
Special Correspondent writes from Anantapur:
The Kurnool district police deployed security personnel at the Srisailam dam to ensure the safety of the structure and were not allowing anybody to go near it.
Srisailam Circle Inspector B. Venkata Ramana said that on the Andhra Pradesh side only 10 police personnel had been deployed, and the strength would be increased from Friday with the arrival of additional forces. Telangana too had deployed police personnel in large numbers on its side of the dam on Thursday.
Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are mandated to draw water from the dam for power generation after the level reaches 834 feet.
A political controversy had erupted with Telangana allegedly drawing water from 806-ft.
Kurnool SP Fakkeerappa Kaginelli told The Hindu that the movement of traffic to and from Telangana was not affected. Devotees bound for Srisailam temple were being allowed without any hindrance either in their personal vehicles or by buses.
Deployment at RDS right canal
The Kurnool police also deployed personnel at the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme right canal as people of Telangana had been demanding that the work at the site be stopped.
The Telangana government had written to the Krishna Tribunal asking it to stop construction of the RDS right canal alleging that A.P. was trying to draw excess water from Tungabhadra from the Tri-State Junction Point (Karnataka-Telangana-AP).
Andhra Pradesh, however, points out that 4 tmcft of Tungabhadra water allocated to it is flowing directly into the Srisailam Dam, and that the State is unable to draw it due to lack of any project to bring water to the western mandals of Kurnool district.
