Water released to Nagarjuna Sagar canals after heavy water inflow to Srisailam

Hyderabad: With more inflow from Krishna and Tungabhadra joining Srisailam, irrigation ministers from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states T. Harish Rao and Devineni Umamaheswara Rao on Wednesday released water to Nagarjunasagar left and right bank main canals respectively.

On the instructions of the Krishna River Management Board, the engineering-in-chiefs of the respective states have worked out an operational table for the usage of Krishna water that is available at all reservoirs, according to which agreement AP will use 78 TMC ft of water against 44 TMC ft of water by Telangana. This is operational for August and depending upon fresh storage levels again the Engineer in Chiefs will meet and share the water.

The Telangana irrigation minister, along with education minister Jagadeswara Reddy, on Wednesday afternoon went to Nagarjunasagar dam, which gets all the water from Srisailam project, and released water to NS left main canal.

Mr Harish Rao said, the water will be used by the Zone-1 (Nalgonda) ayacut farmers for raising crops and enroute tanks also will get filled for drinking water purposes. He said if inflow improves, he will release water for Zone-2 (Nalgonda, Khammam) ayacut also.

Similarly, AP irrigation minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao reached NS Dam in the morning and released water to NS right bank main canal, which caters to Guntur and Prakasam districts of the state.

Currently, Nagarjunasagar dam is getting inflow from Srisailam through both right and left bank power houses to the order of 44,000 cusecs. Both the state irrigation officials decided to use this water for their respective canals in a limited manner and will increase the releases depending upon inflow from Krishna river.