NELLORE: Though the significance of Penna river has been increasing in terms of providing drinking water to Chennai and also irrigation water to many parts of Andhra Pradesh, there has been no permanent technical committee to monitor the water usage. The unauthorised tapping of water from Telugu Ganga Project may lead to inter-state disputes in future.Experts suggested setting up of the River Management Board for Penna to address issues being raised by several regions. Penna river is located in the rain shadow region of the Eastern Ghats in Chikballapur district in Karnataka with a length of about 597 km and has 48,276 km of river basin area in Andhra Pradesh.
The watershed of the Penna and its tributaries cover part of southern Deccan plateau, including most of Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh and also some parts of Karnataka.
The upper watershed of the Penna includes Kadapa, central and eastern parts of Anantapur, southern part of Kurnool and north-western Chittoor district.
Penna tributaries
The Penna River has left tributaries as well as right tributaries. More specifically, Jayamangali, Kunderu and Sagileru are the left tributaries and Chitravati, Papagni and Cheyyeru are the right tributaries of Penna.
The estuary of the Penna extends about 7 km upstream from the Bay of Bengal. There will be more pressure as the State government has proposed interlinking of rivers in AP and Penna will get water from Krishna river if the proposed projects materialise.
“The State government wants to ignore issues of water sharing in future. Penna becomes very crucial after interlinking where management issues get priority. So, there should be a river management board similar to other major rivers since water from Penna is being shared by southern states,” said Venkateswara Rao, a retired engineer of Irrigation Department. Still, there has been illegal drawing of water for irrigation purpose and also for aquaculture from the Telugu Ganga canal systems meant for drinking water to Chennai even though the district administration has issued strict directions in this regard.
