Water storage in the Saradagi Barrage, providing drinking water to Kalaburagi, will last another fortnight and immediate steps are being initiated to get at least .2 tmcft of water from Kallur Barrage in the upstream of Saradagi Barrage on the Bhima to meet the drinking water requirement of Kalaburagi for another 70 days.
Disclosing this at the general body meeting of the Kalaburagi City Corporation here on Monday, Executive Engineer of the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board (KUWSDB) Ashok Madyal said that the water available in the Saradagi Barrage now would last only another 15 days.
Mr. Madyal said that a minor portion of Kalaburagi gets water supply from the backwaters of Bennethora Dam and there is enough water available in the backwaters of the Bennethora Dam to last till April. While 55 MLD of water is drawn from the Saradagi Barrage, 20 MLD of water is drawn from the Bennethora Dam backwaters.
Replying to a barrage of questions from corporators on the drinking water situation, Mr. Madyal said that KUWSDB had originally sought one tmcft of water from Narayanpur Dam in the Upper Krishna Project to meet the drinking water requirement of Kalaburagi.
However, Managing Director of KBJNL Anjum Parvez, who visited Kalaburagi a few days ago, reviewed the situation and the demand made by KUWSDB and stated that even if 2 tmcft of water is released from the Narayanpur Dam, it would not reach the Saradagi Barrage in full to meet the drinking water requirement. He offered to release water from the Kallur Barrage which was just 15 km on the upstream of the Saradagi Barrage so that wastage and evaporation of water could be minimised.
Mr. Madyal said that KBJNL had agreed to provide .4 tmcft of water from Kallur Barrage and initially .2 tmcft of water would be released in a couple of days from Kallur Barrage and it would take 70-80 hours to reach Saradagi Barrage and the district administration has taken steps to disconnect power supply to all irrigation pumpsets along the banks of the Bhima so that the released water is not used for irrigation purposes.
Corporation Commissioner P. Sunil Kumar said that in addition to this, 29 new borewells have been drilled in the city and pumping motors would be installed in all high-yielding borewells soon to supplement the existing drinking water supply system.
