Anantapur: After a gap of two decades, the Bhiravani Tippa project has started receiving water from Karnataka from Thursday.
Heavy rain in the catchment area of the Vanivilasasagar in Karnataka resulted in heavy inflows reaching the project.
Heavy rains in Anantapur and parts of surrounding Karnataka for the past few days also contributed in heavy inflows to the Bhiravani Tippa project located in Gummagatta mandal in Rayadurgam.
It may be recalled that the Hagari river bed in Kanekal mandal used to resemble a desert due to consecutive years of deficit rainfall.
The state government had taken up the treatment of sand dunes through various projects. It had also sanctioned diversion of Krishna waters from HNSS canal through PAB reservoir. The mega project was to dig the canal towards BT project from PABR.
The dry project received water for the first time in two decades following heavy rains in upstream parts of Karnataka.
“The last time we saw the reservoir filled with water was two decades ago, but no flows were witnessed since then”, said Mr Ramalinga Reddy, a farmer.
Official sources said most of the tanks received water due to heavy rains for the past few days in the region. Heavy rains also damaged the standing crops, mostly the orchards of papaya and guava in various parts of the district.
Rayalaseema has received excess rainfall from the southwest monsoon this year, which is a rare occurrence.
While that is so, the parts of Anantapur district that depends on the Tungabhadra dam still have no good news. The dam at Hospet still has very little water. It is expected that little or no water will be released from the High Level Canal to the district.
