Vijayawada: Despite the fact that the Chagallu reservoir has no water allocation from the Tungabhadra High Level Canal (HLC), the water resources department has issued a government order stating that 4,000 million cubic (tmc) ft of water be allocated to Chagallu balancing reservoir.
Following the decline in the water storage capacity of the Tungabhadra reservoir at Hospet, Anantapur was given only 20 to 22 tmc ft last year and this year it may further come down to 10 to 12 tmc ft, according to the available statistics.
The situation certainly is going to contradict the GO issued by the water resources department. Under these circumstances, Chagallu balancing reservoir will get only half TMC water, which would be useful for MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy to claim that he has achieved his goal of getting water to Chagallu.
In the struggle for the top spot in Anantapur TD politics, Mr Diwakar Reddy has raised the issue knowing that Chagallu has no allocation of water. However, his demand prompted the government to direct water resource department to issue GO 544 on the release of 4 tmc ft to the reservoir, Yadiki canal and Tadipatri municipality.
Available statistics suggest that the allocation was made even though there was not enough water availabe.
For the last three years, water has been diverted from the Handri Neeva to the HLC, and from there 0.5 TMC water is being diverted to Chagallu. Mr Diwakar Reddy has been claiming it an achievement. Chagallu only gets 0.5 tmc ft water, according to an irrigation official.
Four tmc ft of water has been allocated to Mylavaram reservoir of Kadapa district from HLC. This has been diverted to Chagallu. Earlier, water allocations of 4 tmc ft to Mylavaram reservoir used to be from Gandikota reservoir. Mylavaram reservoir should be given share from HLC waters, which comes from the Tungabhadra reservoir. The Tungabdra reservoirs can store 132.473 tmc ft of which the HLC has to get 32.5 tmc of water.
If such is the case, Mylavaram reservoir will get 4 tmc ft. However, storage at Tungabhadra has fallen to 100 tmc ft, following which Anantapur district used to get 22 to 23 tmc ft of water.
Last year the position at the Tungabhadra reservoir was so bad that only 10.5 tmc ft was released to the HLC. This year also Anantapur will get around 12 to 13 tmc ft of water from the HLC.
