Experts want Godavari at Sagar, not Srisailam dam

Hyderabad: Irrigation officials feel that diverting Godavari water from Rampur village, located 50 kilometres away from Medigadda in erstwhile Karimnagar district, to Nagarjunasagar is more cost-effective than diverting it to the Srisailam reservoir.

The engineers’ teams of both states also said that taking Godavari water from either Polavaram or Dhummu-gudem to Nagarjuna-sagar and then diverting it to Srisailam through reverse pumping is another cost-effective option.

During their meeting last week chief ministers K. Chandrasekhar Rao and Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy decided to divert Godavari water to the Krishna basin during the flood season. Engineers of irrigation departments of both states met and discussed the feasibility of diverting the water.

During the joint meeting, both CMs  asked the engineers to examine the possibility of diverting Godavari water to Srisailam and Nagarju-nasagar reservoirs.

According to irrigation engineers, Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy suggested to work out plans to divert 2 TMCs of water each into both reservoirs every day during the flood so as to enable supply to Rayalaseema, and Guntur, Krishna, Nellore, and Prakasam districts. Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao suggested the engineers should divert the water to Srisailam reservoir.

In the preliminary meeting held on Friday and Saturday, the engineers pointed out that the diversion of Goda-vari water to Srisailam reservoir entails a sizeable expenditure as the canals will have to pass through Hyderabad and it will take hundreds of crores of rupees to acquire the lands around Hyderabad to construct them.

According to the engineers involved in the process, Godavari water will be lifted from Ram-pur village and then taken to Nagarjuna-sagar via Laknavaram in Warangal district through the Musi River.

They said that the Union of India had previously proposed to lift water from the Godavari in Akinepally, Telang-ana and then take it to the Kaveri river to serve the drinking water needs of Telangana. However, that proposal was rejected by the Telangana government, who instead asked the Centre to divert the water from Mahanadi River in Odisha to the Godavari and then take the same to Kaveri.

The engineers have decided to meet again on July 3 in Amaravati to study the feasibility and cost of the projects as both CMs have asked the engineers’ committee to submit their report by July 15.