Congress government has drawn more water from Godavari than BRS regime: Adi Srinivas

Replying to criticism by the BRS that Godavari river water was let off towards Andhra Pradesh, Government Whip Adi Srinivas said on Saturday, November 7, 2026, according to a report in The Hindu newspaper, that the Congress government has drawn more water from the Godavari compared to the BRS government.

Presenting statistics at a press conference held at the Congress Legislature Party office in Hyderabad on Saturday, November 7, 2026, he stated that the previous BRS government had drawn a total of 86.127 TMC of water through the Devadula project between 2014-15 and 2022-23, which is an annual average of 9.57 TMC.

In comparison, he claimed that the Congress government has drawn about 68 TMC of water in the last three years. He stated that 18.067 TMC of water was drawn in 2024-25 and 18.20 TMC in 2025-26, maintaining an annual average of 18.13 TMC. This quantum is 89% higher than the average of the previous regime. He added that during the first five months of the current year, 16.71 TMC of water has already been drawn by the government.

Mr. Srinivas stated that 8.10 TMC of water has also been drawn through the Sitarama Sagar project, taking the total quantum of water drawn downstream of Kaleshwaram to 24.81 TMC. He claimed that this water has been utilised to provide irrigation to lakhs of acres in Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam districts.

Explaining the capacity of the Devadula project, he said it has 10 pumping units which, if run continuously, can draw 0.23 TMC of water in a day. He stated that it would take about four and a half days to draw one TMC of water, and questioned the criticism raised by T. Harish Rao regarding the quantity of water.

He added that the government is temporarily arresting the flow of water with sandbags near Dummugudem and diverting it to meet drinking water needs. BRS leaders can visit the site and inspect the arrangements, he said.

Speaking on the status of the Kaleshwaram project, Mr. Srinivas said the Medigadda barrage has sunk, while seepage issues have been reported in the Annaram and Sundilla barrages. Under such circumstances, the BRS leader's demand for drawing water at Medigadda is not practical, he said.

He claimed that the Ellampally project constructed during the Congress regime is now proving beneficial to farmers. If the previous BRS government had built the barrage at Tummidihetti as per the original plan, the current situation could have been avoided, he said.

He asked former minister T. Harish Rao to stop spreading misinformation about crop loss, power supply and irrigation, and alleged that he was deriving vicarious pleasure from the drought situation in the state.

On the Krishna river water dispute, Mr. Srinivas accused the previous BRS government of agreeing to an interim arrangement of allocating 512 TMC to Andhra Pradesh and 299 TMC to Telangana out of the undivided 811 TMC share. He said the Revanth Reddy government is now demanding a rightful allocation of 558 TMC for Telangana.