KCR-Fadnavis to sign irrigation deals, turn Telangana green

Hyderabad: Telangana and Maharashtra states will sign fresh agreements for construction of inter-state irrigation projects across the rivers Godavari, Pranahita and Penganga that will benefit both the states, particularly drought-prone TS.

“Along with Kaleshwaram project, agreements will be signed for five more projects, said Mr Harish Rao, requesting the Centre to declare Kaleshwaram project a national project.

Thanking Mr Fadnavis for the invitation, he said that the agreement with Maharashtra would go a long way in fulfilling the dream of Mr Chandrasekhar Rao to provide irrigation to one crore acres of land in TS.

“The comprehensive agreements will cover all pending projects across the rivers Godavari, Pranahita and Penganga which includes Kaleswaram, Lower Penganga and Lendi. A common inter-state board will oversee implementation,” R. Vidyasagar Rao, irrigation advisor to the Chief Minister told this newspaper.

Mr Vidyasagar Rao said that eight barrages have been proposed and agreements would be signed in this regard.

The Maharashtra government has agreed to permit TS to take up projects across Godavari and its tributaries on condition that there should be minimal or no submergence of villages in that state.

Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme at Kannepally village in Mahadevpur of Karimnagar aims at providing 4.50 tmc feet of water to 45,000 acres in the district, besides drinking water to over 60 villages.

Lower Penganga project on Penganga river, which is a tributary of the Godavari, will irrigate an ayacut of about 2,37,600 acres in Maharashtra and 40,000 acres in Adilabad of TS.

Lendi Project is under construction across the River Manjira which too is a tributary of the Godavari. This project is envisaged to irrigate a total ayacut of 66,530 acres in the districts of Nanded (38,820 acres) in Maharashtra and Nizamabad (27,710 acres) in TS.

Mr Harish Rao blamed the past governments in undivided AP for failing to settle inter-state disputes and keeping irrigation projects on the backburner which has hit drought-prone Telangana hard.

“No irrigation project was constructed on Godavari, Pranahita and Penganga due to inter-state disputes. No government in the past made any effort to settle such disputes. From day one we focused on settling these disputes,” he said.

Mr Harish Rao said that the TS CM, has also proposed redesigning or changes in the earlier designs of some of the projects including Pranahita Chevella which kicked up a row, but he remained unfazed.

Dry river stops water release to Sriramsagar project from Babli
Irrigation officials are unable to release 0.60 tmc feet of water from the Babli project in Nanded district to the Sriramsagar project as the Godavari, which feeds Babli, has dried up due to lack of adequate rains in the past two years.

As per Supreme Court directions, the Maharashtra government should release 0.60 tmc feet of water from Babli project to SRSP to cater to drinking water needs of TS in the summer.

In view of this, SRSP superintending engineer T. Satyanarayana and deputy executive engineer Jagadish had visited Babli project on Tuesday and interacted with their counterparts in Maharashtra.

There is no water storage in Babli project as the river has already dried up. The irrigation officials returned empty handed and  reported the situation to the state government.  

Presently, Sriramsagar project has 1,048.50 feet water level as against its full reservoir level of 1,091 feet. Only 5.4 tmc feet of water is available in the project with the dead storage level being 5 tmc feet.