Andhra Pradesh asks CWC to correct water discharge recorders at Polavaram

VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh government has written to Central Water Commission (CWC) to correct discrepancies in gauging discharge of water at Polavaram project, as this could cause misunderstandings among stakeholders of the project, including the neighbouring states.

CWC installs equipment at various irrigation projects to gauge discharge of water from these reservoirs. This helps keep an account of how much water is being stored and discharged from various projects in different states.

During recent floods in Godavari River, however, water resource authorities noticed discrepancies in discharge of water at Polavaram project. For instance, if 20 lakh cusecs of water are being discharged downstream into Godavari at Bhadrachalam, in 24 hours, nearly 20.10 lakh cusecs of water get discharged at Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage in Dowleswaram. The additional 10,000 cusecs of water in the river is from tributaries like Sabari and Sileru.

This roughly tallies water discharges gauged at both Bhadrachalam and Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage.

However, recently, quantity of water discharged at Polavaram project had been only 19 lakh cusecs even after lifting all 48 crest gates to their maximum level when 20 lakh cusecs of flood water released from Bhadrachalam had reached Polavaram after a gap of 12 to 16 hours. This indicates one lakh cusecs of water is less compared to water discharged at Bhadrachalam.

AP water resource authorities say this may raise apprehensions among other stakeholders of Polavaram project, including Telangana, Odisha and Chhattisgarh. They may even lodge a complaint with the centre that AP is holding back nearly one lakh cusecs of water at Polavaram for its own needs, be it for drinking water, irrigation or other purposes.

Authorities say already AP is facing trouble from these three states, as they have moved the Supreme Court complaining about submergence of their low-lying areas allegedly due to backwaters from Polavaram project. States like Odisha and Chhattisgarh are yet to conduct public hearings on this matter. They have also not assessed the environmental impact. They are reportedly not showing much interest in settling the issue expeditiously, even though AP has offered either to compensate for the loss due to submergence or strengthen flood banks to avoid inundation once they conduct public hearing.

AP is also facing the threat of Polavaram receiving “Stop Work Order” from union ministry of environment in case Odisha and Chhattisgarh demand it alleging that AP is flouting norms in execution of the project. The state also depends on centre for funds and requisite permissions to execute the Polavaram project. Thus, any apprehensions about the project may complicate the issue for Andhra Pradesh, further delaying the execution of the project.

Polavaram project chief engineer B. Sudhakar Babu said, “After finding discrepancy in quantum of flood water being discharged at Polavaram project in comparison with Bhadrachalam and Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage, we have asked CWC to correct the formula in the gauge reader at Polavaram project. This will help us remove any apprehensions on quantum of water being discharged, especially at Polavaram, and avoid any trouble in expeditious execution of the project,” chief engineer stated.