VIJAYAWADA: The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has written a letter to the water resources secretaries in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh requesting them not to release water from the Srisailam reservoir exclusively for power generation without prior permission.
Expressing concern that inflows will once again come only after 10 months, the board said that ‘large quantities’ of water were depleted from the reservoir even though there was no requirement of irrigation or drinking water under Nagarjuna Sagar ayacut, resulting in wastage of water into the sea.
“...the Genco authorities of both the States are generating power continuously through the left and the right powerhouses even though the level of Nagarjuna Sagar is near full reservoir level and meager inflows are received at Srisailam. This is also resulting in wastage of large quantum of water into the sea,” KRMB member (power) LB Muanthang said in a letter dated November 18 to special chief secretaries of water resources of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments.
Though the state governments have not placed any indents before the KRMB for water release from Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar Project in this water year (2021-22), the water level at Srisailam ‘depleted’ from 215.8 TMC on October 15 to 94.910 TMC on November 18.
“About 608.77 million units of power (295.91 MU by right powerhouse and 312.86 MU by left powerhouse) has been generated and about 55.966 TMC has been drained into the sea between October 19 to November 10. It is expected that Srisailam will likely receive monsoon inflows only during August 22,” the board member explained. He further said that flow of water into the sea is wastage of valuable water. “This may result in shortage of water for drinking/irrigation in the latter part of the year.”