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The Tamil Nadu government has requested Andhra Pradesh to increase water supply from the Telugu Ganga project for meeting the drinking water needs of the Chennai city.
TN chief secretary Gnanadesikan today visited Hyderabad to participate in a liaison committee meeting with his AP counterpart IYR Krishna Rao in this regard.
He requested the AP government to step up water supply to ensure 2-3 tmc of water reaches Chennai during the January-February period, officials from the AP irrigation department said.
On the whole, Tamil Nadu requested its neighbour to supply 8.716 tmc for the current year, according to a statement by the AP government. The TN chief secretary also sought framing of operational rules to prevent unauthorised and illegal tapping on the borders and also constitution of a permanent technical committee to oversee the water supply from the project.
“After a detailed discussion, IYR Krishna Rao has given instructions to officers concerned to initiate necessary action as early as possible,” the statement said.
In 1977 Krishna riparian states — AP, Maharashtra and Karnataka — had agreed to allocate 15 tmc of water with each state contributing 5 tmc as its share to Tamil Nadu for meeting the drinking water requirements of the Chennai city. However, in 1983 this allocation was slashed to 12 tmc after taking into account the potential evaporation losses of water on way to Chennai.
A series of interlinked canals were created under the Telugu Ganga project in the undivided AP to carry water from Srisailam reservoir up to a distance of 406 km before it reached the destination of Poondi reservoir near Chennai. The supply, however, hardly crossed 3-4 tmc ever since the last stretches of the project were fully completed in the early part of last decade.
