Hyderabad: Inflows into Srisailam have started receding and with the monsoon withdrawal date of October 15 approaching, it is increasingly clear that Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh will not have water from the dam for irrigation.
With no water till the next monsoon, 30 lakh acres of crop land will go without assured irrigation from the Krishna river, which could affect production of food grains.
The Srisailam dam had 160 tmc ft of water on Sunday, and this will be used only for drinking purposes.
“We had estimated water availability based on hope, but the real picture will be available when the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) meets on October 15," said Srisailam dam chief engineer C. Narayana Reddy.
Mr Sridhar Deshpande, officer on special duty at the Telngana state irrigation ministry, echoed the same sentiment, saying, “There is no water for irrigation using Krishna waters. Strict discipline should be ensured to reserve the entire storage for drinking needs.”
India Meteorological Department-Hyderabad director Y.K. Reddy said there was no hope for a significant rainfall till October 15, when the monsoon begins to withdraw, going by the present indications.
According to a Central Water Commission official, there may be another spell of rain in Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra, the origin of the Krishna river, after September 27 but the intensity could not be forecasted now.
“There will be no major inflows. As of now, the Srisailam dam is getting around 1.5 lakh cusecs, this may reduce to Rs 1 lakh cusecs and then to 50,000 cusecs by the end of September,” he said.
Water in significant quantities started flowing into the Krishna river only in September this year.
The Srisailam dam had 160 tmc ft of water on Sunday, only including releases made to the Nagarjunasagar dam which attained the Minimum Draw Down Level of 510 feet against full reservoir level of 590 ft.
In normal years, Srisailam receives about 600 tmc ft from the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers.
For the second successive year, the Tungabhadra yielded little water, and there were no releases downstream from the Hospet dam.
On the Krishna river, only the Almatti (130 tmc ft), Narayanapur (37 tmc ft) and Jurala (9 tmc ft) are full as is the Ujjain dam built on the Krishna tributary Bhima.
