VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh has requested the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) to release 27 tmc of water to the State for drinking and irrigation purposes. In a letter to KRMB member secretary, Irrigation Department’s Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation) C Narayana Reddy, on Friday said the Srisailam project has been receiving huge inflows, and requested the Board to allow the State to draw water.
Reddy sought an order enabling the State to draw water through Pothireddypadu head regulator and Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi. The water, the letter said, would be used to meet the drinking and irrigation needs of the Rayalaseema region, besides providing drinking water to Chennai city.
“The level in the Srisailam reservoir is 853.70 feet with a storage of 88.47 tmc, the level in Nagarjuna Sagar project is 536.70 feet with a storage of 181.11 tmc and in Pulichintala reservoir the level is 173.72 feet with a storage of 43.79 tmc, and Jurala in Telangana State and Prakasam in Andhra Pradesh is surplus,” Reddy said.
Further, more than four lakh cusecs of water has been expected to flow into the Srisailam reservoir, Reddy said. The Chief Engineer pointed out that Telangana had utilised 43.25 tmc water from Srisailam reservoir, 27.23 tmc from Nagarjuana Sagar project, and 11.92 tmc from Pulichintala project for power generation.
The water was drawn without raising an indent, or intimating and receiving a release order from the KRMB.Telangana’s indiscriminate use of water for power generation had been brought to the notice of the KRMB several times. The Board directed Telangana to stop using water solely for power generation, without any indent from downstream (AP) side for drinking and irrigation needs, he pointed out.
As on today, a total of 82.40 tmc water has been utilised by Telangana, Reddy said and demanded that the KRMB include the quantity of water drawn in that State’s agreed share of 299 tmc.