Kaleshwaram to breathe life into Sriram Sagar Project

Telangana government has decided in favour of pumping water into Sriram Sagar Project by sharing part of the drawls from the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme

Hyderabad: The Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP), once looked upon as the lifeline of Telangana, is all set to come alive once again. In a first, the major irrigation project, which could seldom find itself brimming in its 60-year history, will be getting supplementation from a downstream source.

Breathing life into its parched ayacut, the State government has decided in favour of pumping water into the project by sharing part of the drawls from the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme. About 10 TMC of water will be lifted from Kaleshwaram to SRSP, according to Kaleshwaram Engineerin-Chief N Venkateswaralu.

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Water being impounded in the Flood Flow Canal, all along its 120 km stretch from the Mid Manair project to the SRSP, will be pumped into the project from 3 pm on Friday. It will be a big occasion for farmers in 6.48 lakh acres above the Lower Manair Dam (part of its Stage I ayacut), SRSP Chief Engineer Sudhakar Reddy said.

Elected representatives, particularly Ministers and legislators from the ayacut area, are expected to join the officials on the occasion.

With as many as 42 floodgates, the SRSP has a gross storage capacity of 90 TMC. Its live storage as on Thursday is little over 20 TMC, which would not be enough to support the irrigation needs and drinking water needs in its command area for long. This project, located in Nizamabad district after the confluence of Manjeera River with Godavari, has no inflows from the upstream sources so far this year.

The Babli Project of Maharashtra, which used to yield some water to meet emergencies, also had gone almost dry. Babli gates were lifted on July 1 as per the direction of the Supreme Court and less than half a TMC it had in store was let out. This lasted for less than two days. Stage 1 of the SRSP, which has over 10 lakh acres of ayacut, will require about 140 TMC to be fully supported with irrigation.

The ayacut under Stage II of the project that is extended up to Suryapet district, has another 4,40,000 acres which is being taken care of partly by the Kaleshwaram Scheme. The availability of dependable water for the project had come down from 75 per cent to 33 per cent over the years as Maharashtra had constructed many medium and minor irrigation projects upstream in excess of its entitled share of water from Godavari.

The State government has opted for drawl of water from the downstream source as the only way out to revive the fortunes of the farmers.