Weak Monsoon: No water immediately for irrigation under Krishna basin projects in Telangana

Irrigation authorities are assessing the extent of sowing and crop condition in the Krishna basin projects to take a call on the finalization of the irrigation schedule

Hyderabad: Irrigation authorities are assessing the extent of sowing and crop condition in the Krishna basin projects to take a call on the finalization of the irrigation schedule, which is likely to be delayed further this year.

Ahead of finalizing the irrigation schedule, officials are planning to place their indent with the Krishna River Management Board seeking release of water to meet drinking water needs.

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“We will be able to make out the actual requirement for this purpose by Tuesday. We will get ready with the indent letter within 48 hours,” they said.

“The drinking water needs of Hyderabad are our top priority. As usually, we will be drawing water soon from the Nagarjuna Sagar Project. The Minimum draw down level (MDDL) for supporting the Hyderabad water supply is 510 ft. The present level of the project is close to 518 ft. The project is receiving some 5,679 cusecs of inflow from the local sources,” they said.

The Nagarjuna Sagar project has a live storage of 146 TMC as against the gross storage of 312 TMC. Andhra Pradesh has started drawing water from the basin projects to meet its needs in Krishna Delta in June. It has also placed a fresh indent with the KRMB for 5 TMC to meet its drinking water needs. The KRMB will look into its request as the water needs to be given priority.

The Nagarjuna Sagar project has an ayacut of over 17.60 lakh acres. Of this, only 6.6 lakh acres is in Telangana which is fed mainly under its Left Main Canal. Another 1.3 lakh acres of AP ayacut is fed by the Left Main Canal. The right main canal of the project is mean to serve exclusively the 9.7 lakh acres ayacut of NSP in Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam in AP.

Farmers in Suryapet, Nalgonda and Khammam are gearing up for paddy transplantation in a big way. The sowings reported so far are little over 46 percent in Nalgonda, 11 percent in Suryapet and 21 percent in Khammam. The rainfall is far from normal.

Nagarjuna Sagar Project Chief Engineer Ajay Kumar on Monday ruled out the scope for considering water release for irrigation purpose immediately. He made it clear that priority at this moment was only for drinking water supply. He said actual requirement for this purpose would be assessed to take necessary action.

The Jurala project is yet to get any inflows so far. So is the case with the Srisailam project. Jurala has a live storage of some 6.07 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 9.66 TMC. Live storage in the Srisailam project had come down to 33.72 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 215.81 TMC. These levels would not help support irrigation for long unless the projects received enough inflows.