Hey Krishna! On lips of every farmer

 

The heavy rains in the catchment areas of Krishna and Tungabhadra in both Maharashtra and Karnataka have resulted in a second spell of floods in the present season. With this the Almatti dam has started receiving 8,919 cusecs and the Tungabhadra dam over 70,000 cusecs. 

 

Tungabhadra project board officials will be meeting for the first time in the season on Thursday to take stock of the storage situation and to decide on releasing waters to the three main canals in Karnataka and AP.

 

Out of full storage of 100 TMC ft, the Tungabhadra dam reached 54 TMC ft with the latest inflows. If the present flood continues for another week, the crest gates are likely to be opened to release more water downstream, which will reach Srisailam in AP.

 

Similarly the Almatti dam on Krishna River, which had got a good amount of water in the first spell of floods —  most of which was retained in the dam and used for power generation — has now reached 54 TMC ft against the full capacity of 130 TMC ft.

 

“What Almatti is presently getting is less than 1 TMC ft, unless there are inflows of one to two lakh cusecs, there will be no chance of water getting released to AP and TS projects,” said AP engineering-in-chief M. Venkateswara Rao. However Almatti officials estimate that there will be more rain in the catchment in the next 15 days and due to this reason they have started releasing 15,000 cusecs of water for power generation, which is duly picked up by the Narayanapur dam downstream, from where the usage under the irrigation component is more.

 

Meanwhile, the water storage situation in the Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar dams across Krishna in TS and AP continues to be grim and is recording lowest dead levels compared to last year. Unless a huge quantity of water reaches Srisailam and NS dam, at least by August 10, the ayacut under the Krishna River systems in both states will face a severe crisis.

 

Farmers in the Krishna delta system have already raised seedbeds and providing water for transplantation of paddy would be a problem by this month end. “We have been managing with local rains as well as with staggered supplies, but it will be difficult to manage at the time of transplantation,” said superintending engineer of Krishna Delta Systems.

 

As much as 600 TMC ft of Krishna and Tungabhadra water is needed to meet the requirement in TS and AP comfortably.  More than 70 lakh acre of ayacut is dependent on the Tungabhadra and Krishna inflows into the states besides for huge hydel power generation.

 

The Tungabhadra High Level Canal, Low Level Canal, Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme, Jurala, Kalwakurthy, K.C. Canal, Telugu Ganga, Chennai Water Supply, Handri-neva first phase, Galerunagari, Srisailam Right Branch canal, Srisailam Left Branch canal (AMR Lift scheme), Nagarjuna Sagar Right and Left Main canals, storage at Pulichintala and Krishna Delta are the main projects that depend on the waters.