Telangana to write to Centre to spare NSP water

The State will be writing to Ministry of Jal Shakti seeking immediate steps to stop release of two TMC water allotted of late to AP and spare whatever little is left in the project only for meeting the drinking water needs in Telangana.

Hyderabad: Besides identifying six major sources from where water can be drawn reaching out to their minimum drawdown levels (MDDLs) to address the water scarcity concerns, the State is seeking the intervention of the Ministry of Jal Shakti to give precedence to the drinking water needs of Telangana over the irrigation needs of Andhra Pradesh in sharing the Krishna river water, especially the limited water available in the Nagarjuna Sagar Project.

The State will be writing to Ministry of Jal Shakti seeking immediate steps to stop release of two TMC water allotted of late to AP and spare whatever little is left in the project only for meeting the drinking water needs in Telangana. The State authorities are also keen on prevailing on their AP counterparts on this count. They intend to assure AP that the water share they could spare for meeting the emergency situation in Telangana, can be availed once the things improved after May next.

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The State Irrigation authorities have been drawing 1500 cusecs from the Nagarjuna Sagar project from April 1 as the storage in the drinking water sources in three districts- Nalgonda, Suryapet and Khammam touched rock bottom level. The Palair balancing reservoir was partly filled on priority basis along with other projects and tanks as a precautionary measure. The left canal will be closed on a day or two, but the water drawls to meet the drinking water needs in Hyderabad will continue.

The irrigation officials said arrangement have to be made for pumping water from six sources – Nagarjuna Sagar project, Srisailam, Osman Sagar, Himayatsagar and Yellampallai. The Singur project will be kept stand by as part of the arrangement. The NSP would be the more dependable source where from some ten tmc could made available by drawing water up to the depth of 505 ft as against the MDDL of 510 ft. The Himayat Sagar and Osmansagar projects would be able to yield some five tmc to meet the crisis. The Yellampalli project has about seven tmc of water available.

AP has already complained to the KRMB opposing the drawls by Telangana from the Nagarjuna Sagar project while the latter has been contending that it has till been left with an unutilised entitlement up to some eight tmc for the current water year.

AP had drawn more than 100 tmc of water over and above its entitlement in a single water year in the past, said officials.