612 TMC Feet of Krishna Water Has Gone into Sea Since July

 Vijayawada: An estimated 612 TMC feet of Krishna River water has flown into the sea from Prakasam Barrage since July during the current monsoon season following heavy rainfall in upper catchment areas of the river and huge inflow of water from upstream projects.

This underlines the need to expedite execution of two proposed barrages across the Krishna. One at Chodavaram village in Penamaluru mandal of Krishna district connecting Pedakonduru village of Duggirajapatnam mandal in Guntur district. The other at Bobarlanka village of Mopidevi mandal in Krishna district between Oleru and Thurpupalem villages of Bhattiprolu mandal in Guntur district. The two are expected to cost the exchequer Rs 4,761.81 crore as per the current estimates.

Barrage-1 is at 16.110 km downstream of Prakasam Barrage costing Rs 2,235.42 crore as per 2022–23 Standard Schedule of Rates. This will have a storage capacity of 4.131 TMC feet. It will benefit 12 mandals, including Vijayawada Rural and Urban, Penamaluru, Thotlavallur, Kankipadu, Vuyyuru, Pamarru, Pedana, Gunduru, Machilipatnam, Mangalagiri, Tadepalli and Duggirala, covering 165 villages in Krishna and Guntur districts. Nearly 7,633 acres of land will have to be acquired for building the barrage.

Barrage-2 is proposed to be taken up at 67.100 km downstream of Prakasam Barrage at a cost of Rs 2,526.39 crore. It has a storage capacity of 4.950 TMC feet. It will benefit 18 mandals including Penamaluru, Thotlavalluru, Pamidimukala, Ghantasala, Chalapati, Mopidevi, Avanigadda, Kodurul, Nagayalanka, Kollipara, Duggirala, Kollur, Vemuru, Bhattiprolu, Repalle, Nagaram and Nizampatnam, covering 130 villages in Krishna, Guntur and Bapatla districts. Nearly 14,938 acres of land will need to be acquired for the barrage.

Krishna River conservator R. Ravi Kiran said, “These two barrages have been proposed to utilise the surplus Krishna water, which is otherwise flowing into the Bay of Bengal from the Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada. We are awaiting stage-2 administrative approval from the state government to go ahead with the execution of the two barrages.”

Earlier, the state government accorded administrative approval stage-1 involving Rs 204.37 crore in September 2020 for conducting survey and investigation work and preparation of a Detailed Project Report for construction of two new barrages downstream of Prakasam Barrage on Krishna river.

Krishna Flood Water Discharge at Prakasam Barrage into Sea from 2013 to 2024 in TMC Feet.

2013 – 607.24, 2014 – 258.20, 2015 – 51.25, 2016 – 183.70, 2017 – 156.94, 2018 – 192.10, 2019 – 976.93, 2020 – 1,460.61, 2021 – 671.91, 2022 – 1,525.79, 2023 – 185.24 and 2024 – 929.94