Hyderabad: The water releases for the Rabi crop is still a matter of dispute since both governments are claiming rights over it, though there is only a limited quantum of water available in Nagarjunasagar Dam, which is just not sufficient to meet demands.

The ongoing releases of waters for the standing crops from the Nagarjunasagar Right main canal (AP) became controversial over the last few days with Telangana officials trying to stall it and AP officials resisting.

The controversy turned into a clash between lower rung officials of both states on Thursday and AP executive engineer S.A. Jabbar filed a complaint with the police, seeking their help to take over the dam’s operating systems. This led to a commotion on either side of the dam since Thursday and CISF security personnel reinforced their strength and prevented a clash.

“It is increasingly becoming an emotional issue among the lower rung officials. Operation and maintenance of Srisailam Dam has been given to AP and Nagarjunasagar’s to Telangana. Geographically, the Krishna River was also divided. But Telangana officials have been obstructing AP officials for raising objections on the Srisailam Left Bank power house operations, claiming it is their right to release waters. Same logic has to be applied to Nagarjunasagar Dam also. Out of 26 crest gates, 13 belong to AP. How can TS official prevent our staff from operating the gates for release of water?” asked AP principal secretary of irrigation B. Adityanath Das.

However, he said that he had discussed the matter with his Telangana counterpart S.K. Joshi on Friday and a settlement had been reached wherein the Telangana state government agreed to release additional water to AP to save standing crops.