KRMB stirs up hornet’s nest asking Telangana to stop power generation at Srisailam

KRMB has stirred up a hornet’s nest by dashing off a letter to the TSGENCO asking it to stop release of water from the Srisailam Left Bank canal

Hyderabad: The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has stirred up a hornet’s nest by dashing off a letter to the TSGENCO asking it to stop release of water from the Srisailam Left Bank canal as well as power generation at the SLBC power house. The KRMB move was prompted by a complaint lodged by the Engineer-in-Chief, Water Resources Department of Andhra Pradesh.

The KRMB has insisted on stopping releases from Srisailam on the plea that it is likely to be a ‘less than average rainfall year’. The reservoirs may not get filled up to their full capacity and it was an urgent need to conserve water, it maintained.

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The river board has viewed the power generation by Telangana State as “incidental” as no indent was raised for this purpose.

The River Board however preferred to be silent on the drawals being made by Andhra Pradesh. Its drawls from Srisailam were in the order of 18000 cusecs, of which 6000 cusecs were being released for power generation from its own power house. Over 12000 cusecs were being drawn through the Pothireddypadu head regulator for irrigation purpose.

The Srisailam reservoir has received some inflows till recently and its present storage capacity is over 121 tmc as against the gross storage of 215 TMC. The Srisailam project, as on today has 93.93 TMC of water above the Minimum Drawdown Level (MDDL). Building up the storage level further would facilitate only Andhra Pradesh to draw from the Pothireddypadu head regulator at its full capacity of 41000 cusecs.

The releases from the Srisailam Reservoir are the dire need for the command area of the Nagarjuna Sagar project which is spread over both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Srisailam releases are the main source of inflows for the Nagarjuna Sagar. It has received so far no inflows in the current water year. The present storage in the NSP had fallen to 142 tmc as against the gross capacity of 312 tmc.

With the NSP levels falling to 515 ft as against the MDDL level of 510 feet, the project was left with own 11.30 tmc that can be drawn for meeting the drinking water needs. Hyderabad city and the districts like Nalgonda, Suryapet and Khammam were primarily depending on the water releases from the NSP for meeting their drinking water needs.