A large number of employees from Andhra Pradesh have opposed the relocation of Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam, as recommended by the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
Instead, they want the board to be established either in Vijayawada or Kurnool. The board has in all 56 employees from both technical and non-technical wings and a majority of them are from Andhra Pradesh.
As per the AP Reorganisation Act, the KRMB headquarters should be located in Andhra Pradesh and the Godavari river management board in Telangana. But for the last 10 years, the KRMB has been operating from Hyderabad.
Now that Hyderabad ceases to be the joint capital of the two states from June, the Centre proposes to shift the KRMB to Andhra and asked the government to suggest the location. The Jagan government recommended Visakhapatnam.
The KRMB employees are insisting relocation of the Board headquarters to any other place of the government’s choice, but within the Krishna river basin. Shifting the board headquarters to Visakhapatnam would be ill-advised as it would amount to venturing to manage the water sharing issues the board has been tasked with, in absentia.
Since the KRMB is gearing up for taking over the operational control of the Joint projects including Srisailam Dam and the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam from the two riparian States, it would be a tough task for it to manage the operations from a distance. Visakhapatnam is away from the Krishna river basin.
The only justification for relocating the Board to Visakhapatnam is that it would facilitate coordination between the KRMB with the Department of Water Resources of AP to be located in Visakhapatnam. The top brass of the Board may prefer Visakhapatnam as the Board chairman is holding the charge of the Polavaram project as well.
But rest of the staff would not have any option but to fly to Hyderabad to reach the projects by road every time there is an emergency. They have to adopt the same mode for frequenting to the project which would be mandatory during the monsoon time. But the support staff would not be eligible for the expensive air travel.
Besides this, the Board which has been insisting on allotment of an office space of some 17000 sq ft, is yet to be given the final confirmation on this count. Besides representatives of the peasant bodies from Rayalaseema, the government of Telangana has also requested AP government to relocate the board to a place convenient for all the stake holders well within the river basin.
The shifting of the KRMB headquarters may take little more time as the AP High Court given a written direction to the State government not to relocate the government offices to Visakhapatnam until all the petitions filed challenging the relocation move were disposed of.