Taking water from Almatti or Koyna an arduous task for Telangana

Both the Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam projects have been left with less than 30 tmc to support both the States of Telangana and Andhra for the next six months from February to July

Hyderabad: The Koyna Dam in Maharashtra and Almatti Dam in Karnataka are the only sources that hold out hope for more than a dozen towns and the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in Telangana, which depend on the Krishna river basin projects for meeting their drinking water needs in summer. Both the Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam projects have been left with less than 30 tmc to support both the States of Telangana and Andhra for the next six months from February to July.

The State government, which had a review of the available water in the joint projects, was now keen on taking a commitment from both Maharashtra and Karnataka for support supplies in case of an emergency situation. Telangana officials are already in touch with the Maharashtra government for water releases from its upstream projects. Only the Koyna project in Western Maharashtra has good reserves. As against the gross storage capacity of 105 tmc, the project has been left with less than 70 tmc. The irrigation department has preferred Almatti dam in Karnataka for seeking emergency releases to meet drinking water needs. The Almatti has over 56 tmc of water in its storage.

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But the water levels in almost six to seven Karnataka projects including Narayanpur are critically low. A crop holiday has been declared for Rabi under the Narayanpur dam. With the Congress party being in power in both Telangana and Karnataka, it may be possible for Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to make his Karnataka counterpart to accept the State’s special request for water. Telangana is trying to get at least 10 tmc of water from Karnataka in the next six months.

As for Telangana’s move to get emergency supplies from Koyna dam, it could be quite an arduous task. The government has planned to seek about 30 tmc to meet its drinking water needs during the next six months. The Koyna water has to traverse through multiple dams to reach either Jurala or Srisailam project from where the State can draw it for its utilization.

But the net realization of water that is being taken from a distance of more than 1000 km would be far less. The water released from Tungabhadra dam travels a distance of 108 km to reach the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS) and the realization is said to be less than 50 percent some times.