Hyderabad: With the Nagarjunasagar dam reaching a comfortable storage level, and Srisailam dam already being filled, and with more inflows expected for at least another week, both Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh are readying to seek fresh indents of around 250 tmc ft of water for raising the Rabi crop.
The Krishna River Management Board is yet to send a formal requisition to both the states for placing the indents so that it can convene a meeting of the board for making the allotments.
Meanwhile, Mr E. Paramesam took over as board member-secretary, replacing Mr Sameer Chatterjee.
According to TS engineer-in-chief C. Muralidhar, the state may seek around 130 tmc ft for the Rabi crop on about 10 lakh acres under the Nagarjunasagar Left canal and Srisailam Left Branch canal, besides requiring water for drinking purposes.
Andhra Pradesh is preparing an indent seeking around 120 tmc ft for raising Rabi crop on 3.6 lakh acres under the Nagarjunasagar Left canal and 11.60 lakh acres under the Right Main canal in Guntur and Prakasam districts.
Nagarjunasagar has 210 tmc ft of water (full capacity 312 tmc ft), and rising. Minus the water below the minimum draw down level, the dam has about 80 tmc ft. Srisailam dam has about 215 tmc ft.
If KRMB sticks to its earlier orders of limiting water usage at Srisailam dam to 854 ft, the availability would be around 125 tmc ft which has to be released to Nagarjunasagar as Srisailam serves as the balancing reservoir for it.
Due to a decrease in inflows, two gates are being operated at the Srisailam dam, and water is also being released through the two states’ power houses.
Presently, the Srisailam dam is releasing all the 1.4 lakh cusecs it is receiving.
“Water in the Krishna is fluctuating. There is gradual decrease in inflows but the release from the Almatti dam suddenly increased to 80,000 cusecs on Monday morning. That means Srisailam may get more water in the coming days,” said Srisailam chief engineer C. Narayana Reddy.
Nagarjunasagar chief engineer S. Suneel said even if the inflows continue for another 10-15 days, which appears to be certain, the dam will reach its full capacity.
Then, the dam would have 190 tmc ft of water above the minimum draw down level.
