Dipping reservoir levels ring alarm bells for Telangana

Govt move to seek emergency release of water from Karnataka and Maharashtra draws a blank

Hyderabad: Barring a few exceptions, water levels are dipping to the minimum draw down levels (MDDL) in almost all the major projects in the State. The State government has drawn a blank in its moves to seek emergency releases from the neighbouring States of Karnataka and Maharashtra so far. With the Yasangi (Rabi) crops beginning to wither, farmers are up in arms at many places. Irrigation officials tasked with the job of using the precious little left in the projects only to meet the drinking water needs are facing the heat.

The right canal of the Nagarjuna Sagar Project was closed on Sunday after releasing five TMC of its allotted quota to Andhra Pradesh. The project was left with hardly eight TMC of water above the minimum draw down level (MDDL) of 510 feet. Even as the State government has declared a crop holiday under the NSP left canal, Yasangi farmers have raised crops in over one lakh acres in all the three zones of the left canal. They have been mounting pressure on the administration in Nalgonda and Khammam districts for at least a single wetting.

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Telangana, as the Krishna River Management Board claims, has already exhausted its share of water from the Krishna basin projects and it was left with no scope to support irrigation. Though farmers are taking to the streets, elected representatives are not in a position to say ‘no’ to them because of the ensuing parliamentary polls. Farmers have gone for drilling new bore-wells extensively in some of the mandals falling in zone I and zone II of the NSP left canal that are known for extensive cultivation of paddy.

The project officials have ruled out any scope for releasing water to standing crops at any cost and thereby incurring the displeasure of farmer organisations. They fear that the scarcity conditions prevailing in the ayacut might lead to a confrontation with the farmers. Even in the Srisailam project, water levels have dropped to 812 feet. The project has been left with hardly 35 TMC of water as on Sunday as against the gross storage capacity of 215.8 TMC. The water availability in the project on this day last year was little over 41 TMC. The Jurala project has been left with only 3.91 TMC as on Sunday as against the gross storage capacity of 3.91 tmc. The Krishna basin projects did not receive normal inflows in the catchment area last year.

In Godavari basin, all the three barrages of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) have been drained for inspection of the structural issues in November last. The NDSA has asked for draining further the barrages at Annaram and Sundilla. Otherwise the three barrages (including Medigadda) would have given a storage support up to 36 TMC for feeding a string of reservoirs upstream bailing out the all the dependant districts from scarcity condition.

The Sripada Yellampalli reservoir has been left with little over nine TMC of water in the present storage as against the gross storage capacity of 20 TMC. The project had over 17 TMC of water its storage during the same time last year as the KLIS supported it with regular pumping of water from Godavari. Though the State did not have a deficit rainfall last year, the crisis is being attributed to poor management of the projects.