Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh government would raise the issue of the Telangana government drawing water from Nagarjunasagar dam for hydel power generation – a violation of norms -- at the Krishna River Management Board meet on May 6.
AP water resources department engineer-in-chief Narayana Reddy said, “Despite our request to KRMB to prevail upon the Telangana government not to resort to release of water from the Nagarjunasagar project for power generation, TS has been doing so. We are going to raise the issue once again at the KRMB meeting, so as to stop the drawal of water from the project and avoid a water crisis for both drinking and irrigation needs in parts of AP during the summer.”
Telangana continues to draw 4,000-5,000 cusecs of water from the Nagarjunasagar dam to generate hydel power, causing concern to AP vis-a-vis availability of water to meet the drinking and irrigation needs of the people in the erstwhile Guntur and Prakasam districts.
AP water resources authorities say TS drew 1,104 cusecs of water on April 29; 5,211 cusecs on April 28; 4,934 cusecs on April 27; 3,868 cusecs on April 24 and so on; the average drawal of water coming to nearly 4,000 to 5,000 cusecs per day.
At present, Nagarjunasagar reservoir has its water level at 539 feet against the FRL of 590 feet, with the current water storage at 186.25 tmcft (59.69 per cent) against gross capacity at FRL of 312.05 tmcft. As the dead storage level of water in the reservoir is 510 ft, the reservoir is having just 29 feet of water level, which comes to nearly 55 tmcft of water available for use.
The water resources authorities were expected to supply drinking water from the Right Main Canal of Krishna river to the people living in erstwhile Guntur and Prakasam districts from May 15 for a period of 10 to 15 days, and this requires nearly 15 tmcft of water. They have to supply drinking water again in August in case there is no rainfall by that time. In addition to it, the authorities are also supposed to supply water for cultivation of crops in the command area of RMC during kharif season beginning from July in case of no rainfall by that time.
If the Telangana continues to draw water of 4,000 to 5,000 cusecs per day to generate hydel power from the main powerhouse and release such water into the Krishna river, water level in the dam gets depleted day-by-day and this water goes waste into the sea as the downstream projects like Pulichintala and Prakasam barrage are almost filled to the brim and are having no storage space.
The AP water resources authorities say that in case the arrival of south-west monsoon gets delayed, causing a delay in rainfall up to July or August, no water will flow from upstream projects like Srisailam into Nagarjunasagar dam. By the time the available water gets exhausted, AP may face a severe water crisis to meet its drinking water and irrigation needs especially in the two districts.
AP water resources ENC Narayana Reddy had written a letter to Krishna River Management Board on April 4, saying Telangana is releasing water from Nagarjunasagar project for power generation. He urged the board to prevail upon TS not to resort to utilisation of water for power generation without having any regard to irrigation requirements below the Nagarjunasagar project.
