MYSURU: Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited (CNNL) said on Thursday that it has not received any direction from its higher authorities or from the State Government to release water to Tamil Nadu in view of the Supreme Court upholding the order of CWMA and CWRC.
“We can provide water for drinking purpose in towns and cities in Cauvery basin districts and in Bengaluru if there is no release to Tamil Nadu. In the past 10 days, we released 10,000 cusecs and 5,000 cusecs at two intervals. But further release will lead to a water crisis in the coming days,” a senior CNNL officer told TNIE.
According to CNNL, the water level in the KRS dam was 97 ft as against the maximum level of 124.80 ft on Thursday afternoon. The present storage in the dam is just 20.548 tmcft as against the gross storage of 49.452 tmcft. While the inflow was 5,336 cusecs, the outflow was 2,674 cusecs, including release of water into the VC Canal (1,502 cusecs), RBLL (50), LBLL (58), D Devaraj Urs Canal (400) and MCC watershed (50 cusecs).
Similarly, the water level in the Kabini reservoir was 2275.61 ft as against the maximum level of 2,284 ft. The present storage is 14.60 tmcft as against its maximum capacity of 19.52 tmcft. While the inflow was 2,457 cusecs, the outflow was 4,390 cusecs, including 90 cusecs to canals, he said.
The officer said the meteorological department has claimed that there will be showers by next week. “We can only keep our fingers crossed hoping for good rains as forecast by the authorities,” he added.
He said if 5,000 cusecs of water is released to TN for 15 days, then 10ft of water will be reduced in the KRS dam. “One tmcft of water is around 11,000 cusecs, which means, the state has to release 75,000 cusecs or around 2.25 tmcft. After the release, the water level in the dam will drop to 87ft. Water below 68ft cannot be used for drinking as there will be silt in it. Water below 74ft is considered dead storage with just 4.401 tmcft which cannot be used for any purpose,” the officer said.
SEND EXPERT TEAM TO ASSESS SITUATION: MB PATIL TO CENTRE
Bengaluru: Industries Minister MB Patil appealed to the Union Government to send a team of experts to assess the prevailing situation in Karnataka and until then the order to release water should be temporally kept in abeyance. “The Central Government must intervene. A team of experts should be sent to the state to assess the prevailing situation and future course of action should be taken based on their report,” he told reporters. “This is a distress year. We do not have water for drinking and Bengaluru needs drinking water till June, July, and August. This is a very serious situation,” he said. He said Union Ministers Pralhad Joshi, Shobha Karandlaje, Bhag-wanth Khuba, former CMs BS Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai should convince the PM about the situation in the state. On demand for more DyCMs, he said the party high command will take a decision. It was not possible to give political represen-tation to all communities and that may be the reason for minister Rajanna’s suggestion,” he added.