Softening stand on the issue of availing power generated in plants in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana State Minister for Irrigation T Harish Rao clarified Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s earlier statement that his State would not use power generated in Andhra Pradesh. Harish said what the Chief Minister meant was that the State government would not seek power from the new power plants like Krishnapatnam and Hinduja but would fight to get its share from the older power plants.
 
Replying to a question posed by Congress legislators M Bhatti Vikramarka, DK Aruna and P Ajay Kumar in the State Legislative Assembly, the Minister said the AP Reorganisation act had clearly said that Telangana would get 58.99 per cent and AP will avail 46.11 per cent of power from the projects in both States. In reality, Telangana was deprived allocated power from AP projects, Harish added.
 
 Telangana was denied 780 MW of power as its share from Lower Sileru Hydel Power Station after the bifurcation of State, he said, adding that the ownership dispute over the hydro electric project situated in Khammam district was pending before by the Central Electricity Authority.
 
 The Godavari River Management Board has also sought the Centre’s intervention to resolve the issue.
 
The Minister said that since the AP government had stopped power supply to Telangana even though the State was reeling under power shortage, in a ‘tit for tat,’ the Telangana government stopped giving power to Andhra Pradesh from Nagarjuna Sagar hydel project and Srisailam left bank power station.
 
 Harish Rao also alleged that the AP government had obstructed the Neeraja Mathur Committee from releasing its final report on power sharing between two States pending before the Centre for the last one year. He said in the backdrop of this situation, the Chief Minister announced that the Telangana government would not seek power from the new projects. But it would not forego its share from the existing power projects at any cost,Rao added.