Hyderabad: It is not an easy task to strike a deal between the two states on the Krishna, as any water release from Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar dam is often subjected to conflict of interests. On Sunday, the water level at the Nagarjuna-sagar dam stood at 514.5 ft, just four-and-a-half feet above the Minimum Draw Down Level.
If release of water is to be considered from Nagarjunasagar dam either for TS or for AP, more water has to be released from the Srisailam storage which stood at 873 ft on Sunday.
With AP insisting that more water be released to Rayala-seema projects like Telugu Ganga, Srisai-lam Right Branch and Handri Neeva, it means the level at Srisailam Dam should be above 854 ft level.
If Srisailam has to be maintained at that level, there cannot be any more releases from the dam to downstream Nagarjunasagar dam. In case MDDL of 834 ft has to be maintained at Srisailam, the water availability between the present 873 ft and 834 ft which comes to around 95 TMC ft will have to be shared by both Telangana state and AP. This will not be sufficient to meet the demand of both states.
It is a thumb rule that releases to Telangana state and AP should follow strict guidelines as per the agreement entered into by two states. “What we want is our share of 40 TMC ft from the available storage. Let AP decide how they make use of their share of water either for Rayalaseema projects or for NS Dam left canal or for the Krishna Delta,’’ Telangana state engineer-in-chief, C. Muralidhar said.
