Nagarjunasagar dam hits dead storage, Hyderabad to suffer
Last year, the level at the dam on the same day was 531 feet
Hyderabad: The multipurpose Nagarjunasagar dam on Sunday reached the dead storage level of 510 feet. There were no inflows into the dam forcing the upstream Srisailam dam to release whatever little water it is holding right now.
It will be difficult for the Nagarjunasagar project authorities to ensure drinking water needs for Hyderabad and other areas in both, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, if the level goes below 510 feet. Last year, the level at the dam on the same day was 531 feet.
The Krishna River Management Board had decided in its meeting on August 3 with irrigation officials from both states to maintain the Nagarjunasagar dam level at 510 ft. It also decided to release whatever water is held in the Srisailam dam — roughly 15 TMC ft — be released into Nagarjunasagar to maintain the 510 ft level so that drinking water needs under the Krishna delta, Nagarjunasagar right canal and left main canal, Alimineti Madhava Reddy Canal and Hyderabad city, could be met.
It may be mentioned that water at the Srisailam dam is at 802 ft with just 30 TMC ft of dead storage when compared to 882 ft level with over 210 TMC ft of water on the same day last year. The AP government had brought to the notice of KRMB recently that even after it agreed to release 3 TMC ft of water for the drinking needs of the Krishna delta, the Telangana government had, so far, not taken any steps to comply with the release through the NS Dam.
Based on this, KRMB member-secretary R.K. Gupta wrote to the TS government asking it to comply with the directions immediately. It appears there is a communication gap between the departments executing the orders.
While KRMB entrusts the operation of the Srisailam dam to AP and the NS dam to Telangana, the release of water from the Srisailam dam is done by the AP irrigation officials in consultation with the AP Power Generation authorities.