State writes to Karnataka seeking release of 6 tmc from Almatti

The State had already exhausted its allotted quota of 35 TMC from Krishna river projects for the current water year.

Hyderabad: With the water crisis deepening under all major irrigation projects including the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, the State government on Saturday made a request to the Karnataka government for release of six TMC of water from the Almatti dam.

A formal letter was dashed off to the Water Resources Secretary of Karnataka stressing the need for emergency releases from its reservoirs in Krishna basin to support the drinking water supply in Hyderabad and other districts relying on its Krishna river projects.

---

The State had already exhausted its allotted quota of 35 TMC from Krishna river projects for the current water year.

The live storage in the State projects can support the drinking water supply for one more month. The State will be in need of the emergency releases from Karnataka to augment the supplies during the summer months especially from April to June.

Irrigation Secretary Rahul Bojja spoke to his Karnataka counterpart in January sounding on the need for emergency releases in case of an acute shortage. The State government had plans to seek water from Koyna dam in Maharashtra also, but the move was shelved as the distance involved to draw water was more than 700 km.

Almatti project has a live storage of 24.87 TMC of water (above the minimum draw down level) while the Narayanpur dam was left with a live storage of 4.76 TMC as on March 16. The request made to Karnataka government would be pursued at the political level also in view of the urgency involved, according to officials.