RAICHUR: Come April, people of the state have to brace themselves for a severe summer as power generation from Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) is likely to be hit due to severe water shortage in the Krishna river.
Already a tussle is happening between RTPS and residents of villages on the banks of the river in the district for water. There are around 30 villages on the river bank in the district which are entirely dependent upon river water for their survival.
The RTPS had put sand bags on the river bed near its units to act as a temporary barrage to draw water for power generation. The sand bags were removed a couple days ago by the irate villagers alleging that they were deprived of drinking water by RTPS.
Besides shortage of drinking water, large scale death of fish in the river bed due to depletion of water was said to have prompted the village to take action. Further with a view to mitigate the problem of villagers, the government has released 200 cusecs of water from Narayanapura Reservoir.
“This water is running slowly due to large scale sand mining, which has resulted in the digging of pits and also the complete drying up of the river bed”, sources informed. Meanwhile, 100 cusecs of water is being released from the upstream Googal barrage in Devadurga taluk daily to meet the requirements of RTPS.
“But some amount of water is used up due illegal drawing by the farmers and evaporation. We have enough water in the Googal barrage to meet our requirement till this month end. However we foresee tougher days ahead in April and May when we may be hit hard due to water shortage”, a source in RTPS informed.
In the meantime unit VIII of RTPS, with an installed capacity of 210 MW which was shut down for annual overhauling, will resume generation from Monday.
“As of now six of the total eight units are generating an average 1250 MW. Unit VI which has been shut down due to a technical snag may however take some time to resume production”, the sources added.
