Eighteen TMC? Palamuru’s number got misplaced
The viral comparison of Andhra Pradesh’s “100 TMC” with Palamuru’s 18 TMC does not survive the official records.
Official records list different figures for allocation, utilisation and project design.
The “Andhra gets 100 TMC, Palamuru gets 18” comparison is not supported by the water records. It appears to have assembled unrelated figures and called them a comparison — an efficient way to make a water dispute even murkier.
The Krishna River Management Board’s 2015–16 annual report records Andhra Pradesh’s gross working allocation at 512.04 TMC and Telangana’s at 298.96 TMC. For 2023–24, the Board recorded actual Krishna-basin utilisation of 211.790 TMC by Andhra Pradesh and 121.127 TMC by Telangana. Neither figure is 100 TMC. (KRMB annual report; KRMB 2023–24 report)
The 18 TMC figure does have an official home: KRMB lists 17.84 TMC for the Priyadarshini Jurala Project. That is not the same as the Palamuru–Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme. Telangana’s project documents describe PRLIS as a 90-TMC scheme, involving 1.5 TMC a day for 60 days. The Centre’s own records show the project’s appraisal was still unresolved in February 2025.
So the defensible finding is simple: the comparison is unverified and mixes allocation, utilisation and project-design figures. The numbers need sorting before the political theatre starts measuring them with a ruler.