TS Forces Godavari Board To Look Into AP’s Violations Over Sharing Of Sileru, Machkund & Donkarayi Power

The Telangana government has successfully forced the Godavari River Management Board to consider power sharing issues that rose after AP stopped sharing information of power generation at Upper & Lower Sileru, Machkund and Donkarayi power plants along river Godavari. At a meeting held in the Red Hills office of Central Water Commission (CWC), under the chairmanship of A Mahendran on Wednesday, Telangana rejected any further discussion without considering the teething power issues Telangana is mired in. 

The four-long meeting witnessed heated arguments between AP and Telangana officials with the latter strongly protesting the Andhra government’s secrecy over Sileru power generation details, to thwart Telangana’s rightful share in power. Telangana stressed to the board that the secrecy could result in the collapse of the grid and then the board can’t shed responsibility. The installed capacity of the Upper Sileru Hydel Power Plant is 240 MW and the Lower Sileru Power Plant is 460 MW. 

Telangana principal secretary (irrigation) SK Joshi wanted the board to direct the AP government to furnish information on Sileru power plants to Telangana while his AP counterpart Aditya Nath Das argued that the Board was meant for dealing with water issues, not power projects. “Power should be dealt with by the Centre. The subjects of power and water should not be clubbed,” he argued and cited the AP Reorganisation Act to buttress his argument. It is interesting to note that AP only two days ago rejected the Centre’s recommendations on power sharing.

Finally, as a compromise, the board has decided to refer the matter to a working group. The working group will include two engineers-in-chief, one each from AP and Telangana, and also member-secretaries RK Gupta (Krishna River Management Board) and G Chandrasekhar Iyer (Godavari River Management Board). The Working Group would make it’s recommendations in a fortnight.

The working group will also work out jurisdiction of the projects to be notified by the Centre. While TS submitted a list including SRSP and Yellampalli project that it wants under its control, AP submitted another list of projects to be under its control. Telangana officials also wanted the board to give fresh protocols on water release for both the States.

Member-secretaries RK Gupta (Krishna River Management Board) and G Chandrasekhar Iyer (Godavari River Management Board), Principal Secretaries of  AP & TS for Energy, Engineer-In-Chiefs Muralidhar Rao, M Venkateshwar Rao, TS Transco CMD Rizvu and other officials of TS & AP participated in the meeting.