Vijayawada: The TS government’s failure to release water from the Nagarjunasagar project to AP till now is likely to ignite passions between the two states once again.
While AP had released 9 tmc ft water from Srisailam about 10 days ago (6 tmc ft for AP and 3 tmc ft for Hyderabad) following directions of the Krishna River Management Board, the TS irrigation department, which controls the dam gates, has not yet released water from Nagarjunasagar.
The wait is particularly agonising for the parched parts of the Krishna delta which is facing severe drinking water scarcity. The water was supposed to reach Prakasam Barrage three days ago, but when the TS irrigation department did not release the 6 tmc ft, the AP irrigation department took the issue to KRMB and the water resources ministry.
The told the apex bodies that at present, the water level at the Prakasam Barrage is only 3.3 feet, the lowest ever recorded. Krishna district irrigation superintending engineer C. Ramakrishna said that when they contacted the TS irrigation department, they were told that orders to release the water were awaited.
TS irrigation Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar said, “I told the KRMB meeting that whatever decision on release of water from Nagarjunasagar is taken, it will have to be approved by the TS government. So far, we have not received any instructions in this regard.” The water level at Nagarjunasagar on Monday was 507.9 ft.
He added, “We have to consider the fact that pump sets are being installed by the Hyderabad Metro Water Works to lift water from the dead storage levels of 505 ft at Nagarjunasagar to Puttamgandi reservoir. This work is on and it will take two to three days to complete. Once that is done, we may operate NS Dam spillway gates to release the water. Unless the alternative arrangements to supply water to Hyderabad are in place, we cannot release the water.”
Meanwhile, Nagarjunasagar chief engineer Purushottam Raju said he has not received any orders from the TS government on release of water to Prakasam Barrage so far.
