Board puts off decision on Krishna water release for Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The three-member committee of the Krishna River Management Board held its meeting on Wednesday, and decided to wait till June 20 to take a call on whether or not to release more water from the Srisailam Dam for drinking water for both TS and AP.

KRMB member-secretary Sameer Chatterjee, engineers-in-chief C. Muralidhar (TS) and M. Venkateswara Rao (AP) met at Jalasoudha complex and took stock of the situation.

The TS government had requested KRMB to release 4.5 tmc ft of water to meet the drinking water needs of Hyderabad, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy and Khammam districts, by depleting the available storage in Srisailam Dam to below 775 ft. However, it did not press for this in Wednesday’s meeting.

Mr Chatterjee explained to both the engineers that the Board’s earlier orders will take care of the needs of both the states till June 20. He said it was not necessary to take a call on further releases now, and a fresh review can be undertaken after 15 days.

It was decided to confine the withdrawal levels of Srisailam at 775 ft and that of Nagarjunasagar at 502 ft, and with the utilisable water it would be sufficient to meet the present drinking water demand till June 20. This was agreed to by both the officers.

It was discussed at the meeting that the South-West monsoon has touched the Kerala coast and is advancing into Karnataka, and rains have started in the Tungabhadra Basin. Normally, inflows into the Tungabhadra River begin in June while the Krishna River starts getting inflows in July.

Last year there was a heavy decline in inflows into the Tungabhadra, resulting in a drought-like situation in the basin area.

“We will review the situation in 15 days after studying the impact of the monsoon, particularly in the Tungabhadra basin,” Mr Muralidhar told DC.