Anantapur: Successive governments led by the Congress, Telugu Desam and YSRC have ignored the state’s interests and failed to convince Karnataka for grant a parallel high-level canal towards AP to draw more water from the Tungabhadra dam, some experts feel.
The long-pending proposal for a parallel canal is now in focus following the huge loss of water — more than 60tmc-ft– after the dam’s 19th gate was washed away.
It is said that irrigation engineers sent a plea to the government two years ago to survey a Detailed Project Report, but this was not taken seriously. “On the other hand, the Karnataka government had all documentation and a Detailed Project Report, which helped it to mount pressure on the central water commission (CWC) to consider a supplement reservoir at Navali across TB river in Raichur district of Karnataka by citing reasons of heavy silt in the dam,” these experts claim.
They say that though “water from the dam is released towards Srisailam and finally into the sea, the AP HLMC and LLC were unable to make use of this water because the structures were in a poor condition at every stage. The HLMC authorities were getting between 1800-2400 cusecs of water every day.”
In between, the Karnataka government put forward a proposal for a supplementary reservoir in view of the formation of silt in the dam during a span of four decades.
When the AP irrigation authorities sought a nod from the Karnataka government for a parallel canal from the reservoir till the AP borders, to get more floodwater during peak rainy seasons, the Karnataka government recognised the need and asked AP to submit a DPR.
However, while the high-level canal authorities had sent proposals to the AP government for a Rs 7.45 cr budget to prepare the DPR a year and a half ago, no budgetary allocation was made for this purpose.
The AP experts were not interested in Navali and expressed a fear of loss of water in future if Karnataka draws excess water from Navali.
Irrigation experts from Karnataka proposed to build the new reservoir for storage and to utilise more than 35tmc-ft of additional water every year. The four- decades old silt reduction has had an adverse impact on water storage capacity in the TB dam and this is presently confined to 105tmc-ft.
In addition, a balancing reservoir was sanctioned at Untakal village in Bommanahal Mandal along the state borders during the last TD term, following efforts made by Rayadurg MLA Kalava Srinivasulu. But, the project couldn’t get a facelift. The additional reservoir was aimed to store water at a balancing reservoir.
Srinivasulu, egged on by experts’ views, told Deccan Chronicle that he would urge Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu to give top priority to the project.
