Telangana, Andhra spar over Polavaram

Hyderabad: Telangana Government on Wednesday reiterated its demand for modification of the Polavaram project design by conducting a resurvey to avoid submergence of 892 acres along a stretch of 30 km on the banks of River Godavari.

This issue has come up during a meeting convened by the Polavaram Project Authority with the officials of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Both sides had put their points of view on the project. Officials from Andhra Pradesh said that Telangana was raising such issues only to create hurdles in the speedy completion of the project.

The Telangana Irrigation officials headed of Engineer –in- Chief Muralidhar strongly objected to the AP's reluctance to address the issue of submergence and resurvey of the submerged areas in Telangana across the banks of River Godavari.

They informed the PPA CEO Chandrashekhar Ayyar that the standing water at FRL (full reservoir level) will result in submergence of 892 acres on either side of Bhadrachalam and Dummugudem. The officials also explained that drainage congestion and stagnation of local streams due to backwaters of Polavaram in the Telangana territory pose a big threat.

The Irrigation officials also pointed out that Andhra Pradesh had not furnished the details of the lift irrigation project taken up by AP government from the dead storage of the Polavaram project.

However, the official team from AP headed by state Special Chief Secretary to Irrigation Shashi Bhushan Kumar and Engineer-in-Chief Narayan Reddy said that the Telangana government was raising the issue of submergence to create hurdles to the project.

The Central Water Commission (CWC) with the coordination of the two States had already conducted a joint survey and made its observations on the submergence.

The AP officials said that the issue of establishing a PPA office in Rajamahendravaram was also discussed and that a final decision would be taken soon. The AP government urged the PPA and CWC officials to resolve the pending issues mainly the submergence based on the survey reportedly prepared by the Central agencies.