Telangana, Andhra Pradesh unite to fight for new dam across Tungabhadra River

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state governments have decided to put forth a common front and oppose Karnataka’s proposal to build another major reservoir across Tungabhadra River, which will be upstream from the existing Tungabhadra Dam near Hospet in Bellary district.

Karnataka major irrigation minister M B Patil on Tuesday had announced construction of the dam with a capacity of 35 TMC ft in Haveri district to compensate the loss of storage in the Hospet Dam due to sedimentation over the years.

Like Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam, the gigantic reservoirs built in undivided Andhra Pradesh, Tungabhadra Dam is also suffering from over-sedimentation, which is a normal feature for any major reservoir in the country.

The Tungabhadra Dam, which was constructed in 1953, used to have storage of 130 TMC ft. At present, however, its capacity is only 100 TMC ft. Besides proposing the dam in Haveri district, the Karnataka government is also exploring other ways to bring in more waters from Almatti by excavating exclusive canals to divert floodwaters to Tungabhadra.

“Unlike other projects, the Tungabhadra Dam is an inter-state project constructed by the then Hyderabad State and Madras Presidency. Kar-nataka, all of a sudden, cannot bring new proposals, we will not tolerate this and we will lodge a complaint,” said Telan-gana irrigation minister T. Harish Rao.

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