Telangana stares at severe water crisis as reservoir levels dip

Major irrigation projects, barring Jurala, have received no significant inflows so far.

Hyderabad: Across the State, reservoir levels are dropping further. The storage levels have witnessed no improvement even a month after the new water year was off to a dry start. Major irrigation projects, barring Jurala, have received no significant inflows so far. Issues related to water management and distribution in the previous season contributed to the depletion in storage levels.

Even the joint projects of the two Telugu States, such as Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, have received zero inflows so far this year. Farmers in the ayacut of the Krishna river projects, who had a crop holiday during both crop seasons last year, are going in for paddy in a big way, adding further to the demand for irrigation. Though the crop season started on a positive note with widespread pre-monsoon showers this year, the dry spells experienced in the middle of June have cast shadows on the hopes of farmers.

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Nagarjuna Sagar, which has an ayacut area of over 6.3 lakh acres in the State is a major source of drinking water supply to several districts, including the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Its present storage has come down to 121 TMC, almost 28 TMC less than its storage on the same day last year. The water levels dipped to 504 feet, nearly six feet below the minimum draw down level of 510 ft.

The present storage capacity of Srisailam project has come down to 37.36 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 215 tmc. Jurala was the only project which received some inflows in June. Its present storage is above seven TMC as against the gross capacity of 9.66 TMC. The reservoirs in Godavari basin, including those integrated with the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, have almost been emptied because of the growing demand for water. Kaddem project has almost gone dry has been left with less than 3 TMC for meeting emergencies. The present storage in Nizam Sagar project dropped to 3.7 TMC as against the gross storage of 17.80 TMC.

Unless the project received fresh inflows in the next two weeks, the crops raised in the ayacut may not get irrigation support for long. The Sriram Sagar project has just started receiving inflows in the order of 4000 cusecs. The Babli gates were lifted on Monday, but this Maharashtra project hardly has any water to yield for the SRSP where the preset storage has come down to 10 TMC against the gross capacity of 90 TMC.

Singur project has 13 TMC of water as part of its preset storage as against its gross storage capacity of 29.91 TMC. The Lower Manair and Mid Manair have some five TMC each in the preset storage as against their gross storage capacity of 24 tmc and 27 tmc, respectively.

Yellampalli project had little over four tmc of water as against its gross storage capacity of 20 tmc. Emergency pumping was commenced to draw water from the project to support the drinking water supply in twin cities. Though the Pranahita river is adding to the inflows to Medigadda barrage, there is no scope for lifting water from Godavari, officials said.