Krishna board waits for water levels to rise again

Hyderabad: The not-so-encouraging inflows to the Srisailam dam, the main source for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states, has resulted in the Krishna River Management Board failing to reach a decision on distribution of waters. 

KRMB member-secretary Sameer Chatterjee told this newspaper that the Board was waiting for a response from the AP government over the TS government’s fresh indent for release of 2 tmc ft of water from Srisailam to Nagarjunasagar due to depleting storage levels at the NS dam that caters to the drinking water needs of Hyderabad city and Nalgonda district. 

“As of now, there are no plans for a Board meeting; there is no point in convening the meeting since there is no sufficient inflow at Srisailam,” Mr Chatterjee said.

TS Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar wrote to KRMB seeking release of 2 tmc ft of water from Srisailam dead storage to enable the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Board augment supplies to the state capital city. 

“We have sought a response from AP on this. Once we receive it, we may have to take a decision on water release,” Mr Chatterjee said.

However, the inflows situation at Srisailam has not been too encouraging so far. 

The project is getting around 25,000 cusecs of Krishna waters from upstream Jurala for the last two days. According to Srisailam cam chief engineer C. Narayana Reddy, these inflows may continue for another three days. Meanwhile, inflows at Almatti in Karnataka state started decreasing – from 50,000 cusecs earlier, to 19,000 cusecs on Tuesday morning. 

“We had managed well during summer season, but it’s most unusual that we are unable to manage in monsoon season. We received only 2 tmc ft from the fresh inflows from Jurala; we may get another 5 tmc ft in the next three days,” Mr Narayana Reddy said. 

He said that the dam level touched 800.5 ft on Tuesday and may go up to 810 ft by September 8 against full reservoir level of 885 ft. 

According to Central Water Commission estimates, fresh rains in Almatti catchment area are most likely after September 7. 

“We are facing a most precarious situation on the Krishna front,” Mr Narayana Reddy said.