Bengaluru: A day after promising to provide 24x7 quality power to industries, Energy Minister, D.K. Shivakumar painted a grim picture on Wednesday of the power and water situation in the state, warning that Bengaluru too may not escape a crisis on both fronts this time.
Revealing that the state had already stopped generating hydel power, he told reporters that most reservoirs were only filled to 40 per cent of their capacity, pointing to a serious energy crisis in days to come.
"While we are still producing 9,500 MW as against the requirement of 8000 MW, the day may not be far off when we could be short of power," he warned.
Despite the Escoms suffering a combined loss of Rs 2500 crore over the last couple of years, the government would find the resources to buy power as a contingency measure, he assured, adding that it would buy power even from private stakeholders to tide over the situation.
Considering the looming water crisis, he said Chief Minister Siddarmaiah would soon write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his intervention on release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
"Tamil Nadu has already started to mount pressure on us to release its share of water. But the storage in reservoirs of the Cauvery basin is at an all time low. The Krishna Raja Sagar dam, for instance, has only 15.5 tmc ft of water. These reservoirs could get another 25 tmc ft water if the catchment area receives reasonable rain over the next few days. But as of now the situation is bleak and so the government intends to seek Mr Modi's help with Tamil Nadu’s demands,” he explained. With the monsoon expected to fail, the state anticipates drought in 136 taluks.
Crop saver, state to release water
Conceding the growing demand from farmers in the Cauvery basin, the state government on Wednesday announced that it would take steps to release water in the next 10 days to save standing crops in the river basin area.
Speaking to reporters, energy minister and Mandya district in-charge, D. K. Shivakumar said the Irrigation Consultative Committee(ICC) headed by Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah decided on Tuesday that the government must take steps to release water to save standing crops.
"As per the unanimous decision taken by the ICC, we decided to release water into canals till August 30," he said. Mr Shivakumar added that the state government had appealed to Cauvery river basin farmers not to sow paddy or sugarcane, which are water intensive crops. “But in some places, farmers have sown already, because of this, we decided to release water.”
According to him, irrigation experts have estimated that KRS dam is likely to receive four TMC water till August end and five TMC by the end of September, which is apart from two TMC in October, 1.3 TMC in November and 0.70 TMC in December.
"If we receive only this much water, then it will not be sufficient to met our drinking water needs. Hence, we had decided to stop water for agriculture," he explained and added that the government's priority was to take care of drinking water needs and not agriculture..
He added that the government will stop releasing water for agriculture from September 1 to Sept 10 and after reassessing reservoir levels, it will be decided whether to continue releasing water for agriculture or not.
