Telangana to get 2.25 tmc from Karnataka’s Narayanpur dam

The Karnataka government responded positively to the request made by the State after assessing it own water requirement for the next three months.

Hyderabad: The State government has secured 2.25 tmc of water as an emergency release from Karnataka ahead of the parliamentary polls. In anticipation of an impending water crisis, Irrigation authorities had made a request in March to the Karnataka government for release of water from the upper Krishna projects in the event of acute scarcity conditions.

Their Karnataka counterparts have responded positively to the request and started releasing water from Narayanpur dam on Wednesday. It would take two and a half days for the water released in Karnataka to reach the Jurala project, flowing down a distance of 167 kilometres. A major worry in taking water from Karnataka project was the transmission loss during the peak summer. But the loss is expected to be minimum this time, as Karnataka has already been supporting thermal operations at the Raichur power station with regular water supplies to Guljapur project (112 km away from Narayanpur). The Jurala project, which is to receive water from Narayanpur dam, is 55 km away.

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Request made for 10 TMC

The State had sought 10 TMC of water from Karnataka, which however did not respond immediately in view of the water crisis being faced under the Almatti and Narayanpur dams. Irrigation Secretary Rahuk Bojja then wrote to his Karnataka counterpart once again recently requesting at least 5 TMC. The situation in Karnataka districts and cities under the Krishna basin projects was said to be relatively better compared to Bengaluru city, which is falling under the Cauvery basin.

The Karnataka government responded positively to the request made by the State after assessing it own water requirement for the next three months. Chief Engineer Vijay Bhaskar Reddy and his team of officials met Irrigation officials of Karnataka in Bengaluru recently as part of the mission.