AP to Continue Drawing Water from Nagarjunasagar Dam to Meet Its Irrigation Needs
AP’s Water Resources authorities drew 500 cusecs of water from the NS Dam Right Canal for the first time this season on Wednesday.
Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh government intends to continue drawing water from Krishna River through the Nagarjunasagar (NS) Dam Right Canal for cultivating crops in various parts of AP during the ongoing Kharif season.
A decision to this effect has been taken after the ND Dam started receiving good inflows from upstream projects following rainfall in their respective catchment areas.
AP’s Water Resources authorities drew 500 cusecs of water from the NS Dam Right Canal for the first time this season on Wednesday. Following this, the Telangana government reportedly lodged a complaint with the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) pointing out that AP has started drawing water from the dam without obtaining any permission.
In counter, AP authorities maintain that as the Nagarjunasagar Dam is getting huge inflows of water, it is likely to reach even the full reservoir level (FRL) very shortly. They have thus started drawing the water to meet their irrigation needs as, otherwise, the surplus water from the dam will go waste into the sea.
Significantly, both AP and Telangana are permitted to draw 132 TMC feet of water each from Right Canal and Left Canal respectively to meet their needs. AP has alleged that 15 days ago, Telangana had started drawing water from the dam, while AP is doing so only from Wednesday onwards.
At present, the Nagarjunasagar Dam has 268.7 TMC feet (86 per cent) of water against the gross capacity at FRL of 312.05 TMC feet. It has an inflow of 86,769 cusecs of water from upstream projects, while the outflow is 8,335 cusecs to downstream projects.If the rainfall continues in the catchment areas and in upstream projects, NS dam will be filled up to the brim very shortly.
Sources say that AP has not received any communication with regard to its drawal of water from the dam through the Right Canal either from Telangana or from KRMB. In case this happens, AP will give a prompt reply justifying its act.
Nagarjunasagar project superintendent engineer P. Krisna Mohan maintained, “We have started drawing water from the NS Dam through the Right Canal from Wednesday onwards to meet our irrigation needs. We will continue doing so by gradually raising the quantum of water as per our requirement.”
Nagarjunasagar project’s Right Canal has a command area of 12 lakh acres located in parts of Krishna, Palnadu, Guntur and Prakasam. Nearly 154 TMC feet of water is required for cultivation of crops in these districts during the Kharif season.
