The Hindu : Karnataka News : Concern over poor utilisation of Tungabhadra waters

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Karnataka

Concern over poor utilisation of Tungabhadra waters

M. Ahiraj

Steps have not been taken to tackle the chronic phenomenon; silt formation has brought down the augmentation capacity

— FILE Photo: M. Ahiraj

WATER GOING WASTE: The Tungabhadra dam at Hospet.

BELLARY: The decline in the utilisation of water from the Tungabhadra dam at Hospet, noticed for the past several years, has become a matter of concern.

Though this has become chronic phenomenon, serious attempts have not been made by the concerned authorities to overcome it.

What is surprising is that the declining trend is not because of non-availability of water but mainly because of lack of storage capacity in the reservoir.

Except for three years — 2001-02 to 2003-04 when the monsoon failed, the reservoir has been overflowing every year since 1953 when it was constructed.

Heavy silt formation over the years has brought down the augmentation capacity of the reservoir from 133 tmcft to 104 tmcft, and the lack of mechanism to augment water during the surplus period are among the other reasons being quoted for the poor utilisation.

It means that around over 200 tmcft of water, including 29 tmcft of water, which is the legitimate share of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, is going waste in the river course when the dam overflows, during the limited period of about a month.

Scanty post-monsoon rainfall in the catchment areas has affected the second filling of the reservoir.

Tungabhadra dam, an inter-State project built in 1953, has been catering to the drinking water and irrigation needs of the drought-prone districts in Karnataka (Bellary, Koppal and Raichur) and Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool, Cudappah and Anantapur districts). The project has been allocated 230 tmcft (including evaporation losses of 18 tmcft) of water by the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal.

The share of Karnataka, out of the allocation, is 138.990 tmcft and that of Andhra Pradesh 73.010 tmcft. The dam has been irrigating 12 lakh acres of land, 9 lakh acres in Karnataka and 3 lakh acres in Andhra Pradesh.

As against the allocation, the utilisation of water for irrigation from the Tungabhadra dam has come down drastically. As against the normal inflow of over 300 tmcft into the reservoir, the utilisation has been varying between 150 tmcft and 170 tmcft in the past 10 years. During 2007-08, the inflow was 476.018 tmcft while the utilisation stood at 156.174 tmcft. As much as 252.121 tmcft of water was let out through the spillway in that year. In the previous year (2006-07) too, the inflow was 296.274 tmcft while the utilisation stood at 150.817 tmcft.

With no scope for removing silt from the dam, which is considered as an unviable proposition, and no suitable place along the command area to augment water that is going waste, the only viable solution to increase utilisation is by releasing water into the canals early, says K.M. Rudraswamy, former chief engineer, Tungabhadra Board.

“Statistics show that the reservoir gets filled during the monsoon. In anticipation of good inflow into the reservoir in the later period, water can be released early (from July 1 instead of July 10 or July 15) which will not only help farmers take up cultivation early but also enable utilisation of more water,” he told The Hindu.

Another option he suggested when he was the chief engineer was to construct a flood-flow canal to divert the water that is being let into the river and store it in the existing reservoirs in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. However, this has remained only on paper. “The water stored in reservoirs in Anantapur should be accounted for and apportioned between the two States as per the ratio fixed by the Bachawat Tribunal.

The advantage will be that water stored in the balancing reservoir should be part of Andhra Pradesh’s quota and the State’s share could be retained in the dam,” he says.

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