Monday, Aug 8, 2022

Will not stop power generation in Srisailam, says official

By Srinivas M

Published: Published Date - 12:22 AM, Thu - 1 July 21

Will not stop power generation in Srisailam, says official — SP AV Ranganath supervising the security arrangements at Nagarjuna sagar in Nalgonda district. Official says pumps of various lift irrigation projects including Kaleshwaram and Devadula in Mahabubnagar running in full steam

Hyderabad: Telangana will not stop generating power from the Srisailam power plant. “We are generating hydel power only to meet our exigencies,” a senior official told Telangana Today on condition of anonymity. “There is no question of stopping power generation in Srisailam,” he said explaining the reasons for exigency.

The pumps of various lift irrigation projects including Kaleshwaram, Devadula and others in erstwhile Mahabubnagar were running full-steam. “When pumps of all the projects are being operated, we are in exigency of hydel power which is much more economical than thermal power. If we don’t generate hydel power now, we cannot do it later. We have to generate hydel power only during the monsoon season,” he said.

Stating that scope for generation of hydel power existed only during monsoon, the government took the decision to go in for 100 per cent hydel power generation in all the projects on Godavari and Krishna to meet the exigency, he said.

The official was responding to the Andhra Pradesh Cabinet decision on Wednesday to write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in the water dispute with Telangana State. The AP Cabinet resolved that there was no question of compromise with regard to the rights of AP and found fault with Telangana on its attitude on the issue, allegedly going ahead to generate hydro-electricity at Srisailam although water had not reached the minimum drawing level in the reservoir.

“Since the installed capacity in Srisailam plant was more, power generation is a natural action. As the government has hydel power exigency, it is going ahead and there is no bar on power generation when the State is in need of power. Because there is power exigency, we are doing it,” the official said, pointing out that ultimately, the water does not flow into the sea unitilised and will instead, be stored in Nagarjunasagar.

“We are not wasting water. We are meeting power exigencies and letting the water into Nagarjunsagar reservoir which can be used by the two Telugu States,” the official explained. “We are not doing anything wrong as Srisailam is a hydropower station. Hence, we will generate power and instructions have been issued by the Energy Secretary to generate power,” he added.

In its order issued on Monday, the State government said that the typical terrain of Telangana leaves no option except to lift water from either river to fulfill the aspirations of the farmers of the State. Since the power requirement is huge, and the fact that Telangana has around 2500 MW hydel power generation installed capacity with much lower capacity utilization, the government took the decision to generate hydel power and directed the TSGENCO to generate hydel power up to 100 per cent installed capacity in the State.