VIJAYAWADA: Farmers under the Kurnool-Cuddapah (KC) Canal, which has a total ayacut of 2.65 lakh acres in Kurnool and Kadapa districts and is a lifeline for lakhs of people in the region, have suffered due to loss of 8 TMC of its water share which was allocated to the Srisailam Right Bank Canal (SRBC) when it was conceived.
It was recommended that it would be compensated after the KC Canal modernisation. Though the canal was modernised in 2007 after several years of work, the situation returned to square one after catastrophic flooding in 2009, which rendered the entire modernisation exercise a waste.
Since then, that is more than 12 years, farmers of the KC Canal ayacut are bereft of their rightful share. Now, with the proposed modernisation of the KC Canal, irrigation expert M Subbarayudu, who played a key role in designing several projects, wrote a letter to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to remedy the situation, suggesting how the 8 TMC of water can be returned to the KC Canal.
On November 11, 2021, the Centre asked the State government to give its concurrence to take up KC Canal modernisation with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB) to a tune of Rs 569.40 crore. The State government responded positively and preparation of a DPR for canal lining has been taken up.
“It is the time to get back the 8 TMC diverted to the SRBC from the KC canal. There are three possibilities to get it back, one being meeting 8 TMC of water from Polavaram to the SRBC and giving back 8 TMC to the KC Canal, second being using 8 of 9 TMC allocated to Pulichintala from savings of Krishna delta modernisation and the final one being diverting savings in evaporation losses in Rayalaseema region which is more than 8 TMC, to the SRBC,” he explained.
Speaking to TNIE, Subbarayudu said when the SRBC was conceptualised and agreed upon in the 16th meeting of the Advisory Committee held on March 28, 1981, citing Central Water Commission (CWC) note, it was said the total water requirement of the project is 19 TMC.
“As per the note, 11 TMC of the water requirement will be met from regenerated flow which would be available to the State after 1985-86 (according to KWDT report) and the balance from savings effected by modernisation of the KC Canal or by diverting the allocation of 45 TMC of Godavari water to the Krishna basin,” he said.
Subbarayudu said it is important to understand that to run the KC Canal smoothly, the reservoir has to store allocated 29.90 TMC which will be available only in the monsoon, besides storing the surplus water available in good years so that farmers can be saved from drought in bad year. However, these two issues never materialised and the successive governments have not utilised the advantage of allocation of water to the KC Canal by the Bachhawat Commission.
“It was decided to divert 8 TMC to the SRBC. The KC Canal modernisation works, which commenced in 1991-92, were completed in 2007, but due to unprecedented heavy floods in 2009, the distribution system of the canal was damaged. Repeated proposals submitted to the government thereafter to rectify the situation have yielded no results,” he said. Under the present circumstance, any of the three possibilities mentioned in his report can be used, as all the three are feasible, he argued.