Failure of rains in Tungabhadra area affects projects on river Krishna
Hyderabad: A major variation has been observed in the flow pattern of the Krishna river till October, usually the month floods recede.
The river used to sequentially fill all the major projects beginning with Almatti dam in Karnataka and ending at Prakasam barrage at Vijayawada. This year, Pulichintala received more waters than Nagarjunasagar dam located upstream.
The bulletin released by the Telangana and AP governments on Krishna inflows in the water year from June 1 to May 31, clearly highlighted the variation.
Failure of rain
Almatti, the first major project that receives Krishna river inflows, had got 410 tmc ft of water up to October 1. The 130-tmc ft dam is full and water was utilised to provide for crops. The rest was released to Narayanpur project, the second major dam on the river in Karnataka. Naray-anapur having a capacity of 38 tmc ft received 306 tmc ft of water.
Jurala, the first major irrigation project in Telangana which can hold about 10 tmc ft, received 320 tmc ft from both the Krishna and the Bheema, a tributary. After providing for irrigation, the water was released downstream.
At Srisailam dam, with a capacity of about 216 tmc ft, the variance in inflows began this year. It used to get waters from Jurala via the Krishna river, and from the Tungabhadra which is a tributary of the Krishna. Srisailam received 310 tmc ft this season, the major contribution coming from Jurala and the rest from rain in the catchment areas of Handri and Tungabhadra rivers but not from the Tungabha-dra dam in Karnataka, which typically contri-butes more to Srisailam.
The Tungabhadra dam received 86 tmc ft of water this year, against its capacity of 101 tmc ft. Failure of rains in the Tungabhadra catchment area first time caused major variance in the inflows pattern.
The 312-tmc ft Nagarjunasagar dam has got just 88 tmc ft, all of it contributed from Srisailam dam; It has no significant independent catchment. Out of this, it released waters for irrigation and drinking in Telangana and AP. This is the first time that the Nagarjunasagar is short of water.
The Pulichintala dam has approved capacity of 30 tmc ft in the season. It received 93 tmc ft of wa-ter, mainly due to heavy rain in Nalgonda and Guntur districts. That it got more water than Nagarunasagar is itself a variance in the pattern of the Krishna river.
The terminal irrigation structure on the Krishna, the Prakasam barrage at Vijayawada, was also subjected to vagaries this year. It did not have any inflows when the season started, and received Godavari water from the Pattisee-ma lift scheme. When heavy rain and water from Pulichintana filled it up, water from the Godavari was stopped.
More than that there is also heavy surplus into the sea. Having utilised about 52 tmc ft so far for the Krishna delta, around 50 tmc ft of water has gone waste into the sea.
