Friday, Apr 12, 2002
Friday, Apr 12, 2002 |
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Andhra Pradesh
By Our Staff Reporter
The demand for a parallel canal has been there in Bellary and Anantapur districts for long as the farmers under the Left Bank canal (Raichur canal) of the project have been resorting to excess withdrawal of water often. As a result, the Right Bank canals were being deprived of their allocated share regularly. Strangely, the Tungabhadra Board, which controls the entire project, has no say over the administration of the Left Bank canal. It is entirely monitored by Karnataka. This year too, Karnataka, particularly the Left Bank canal, had overutilised the project water than the allocated share. On the anticipation that 144 tmcft of water would be realised in the reservoir this water year, against the reduced project capacity of 212 tmcft, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were allocated 94.408 and 49.592 tmcft respectively. But, Karnataka had drawn 96.067 tmcft against AP's 46.695 tmcft till March 31. The project engineers stated that Karnataka had utilised 3.455 tmcft more than their allocation, while AP had a balance of 2.897 tmcft to be drawn. However, the near drying of the reservoir has led to acute drinking water shortage in Kurnool. The matter of excessive drawl of water was taken to the notice of the Karnataka Government, but there was no effort from the Government to stop it. The political parties and farmers of Bellary and Anantapur districts had agitated together for the flood flow canal in the past. However, the Bellary politicians and farmers were learnt to have been calmed down by the strong political lobby belonging to Raichur and Koppal areas in the recent years, with a view to take the Left Bank canal water further to serve additional ayacut there. The flood flow canal proposal envisages to utilise the water flowing down the project during the floods. A study of data reveals that the Tungabhadra reservoir has received higher yield than its total storage capacity of 230 tmcft in 43 out of the last 50 years since 1952-53. Only during seven years the water yield was lesser than the storage capacity. The amount of surplus water has ranged between 35 tmcft and 300 tmcft in 17 out of the last 25 years. Meanwhile, the acceptance of Karnataka Government to release about 2.5 tmcft water from the Bhadra reservoir for the drinking water needs of Kurnool has several practical problems. Apart from the opposition from the farmers under the project, the transmission losses are estimated to be very high due to dried river course of Tungabhadra at several places. The Tungabhadra Board engineers told a team of newspersons from Anantapur that it was being planned to release water to Kurnool from April 20. Water released from Bhadra is likely to take about eight days to reach TB dam and from there it can take another four days to reach the Gajuladinne Project in Kurnool district.
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