Seven tmcft water needed to tide over water crisis: Uma

Seven tmcft of Krishna water — five tmcft for cities, towns, and villages in the Krishna Delta and two tmcft for the upland areas that are provided water by the Nagarajuna Sagar Left Canal — was needed to tide over the summer crisis, Water Resources Minister D. Umamaheswara Rao has said.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, the Minister said that the Irrigation Engineering-in-Chief was being sent to Hyderabad to impress upon the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) to see urgency of the matter. The Minister said that the water level in the reservoir upstream Prakasam Barrage fell to 5 feet and this affected the groundwater level in the borewells of Vijayawada city. The level in the borewells of the city fell from 8 m below ground level to 9-10 m below ground level.

The groundwater level would get re-charged once the water level in the Prakasam Barrage reached 12 feet again, he said.

The Minister said that rainwater conservation was being taken up like a movement.

Six districts — Chittoor, Prakasam, Anantapur, West Godavari, Kadapa, and Guntur — had been covered with Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu addressing several public meetings in these places. Visakhapatnam district was being covered on Saturday and the Chief Minister was also participating in it. He said that people were showing tremendous enthusiasm in the Neeru-Chettu and Panta Sanjeevani programmes.

The Minister said that farmers were happy because crops were not withering because of power-cut. Power was being given for between seven and nine hours.

Asked about his discussion with Telangana Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao, he said that his Telangana counterpart had asked him about the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme (RDS).

“I asked Mr. Harish Rao about vacating villages that would be inundated by the waters of Pulichintala Project. Four or five villages in Nalgonda district will be inundated if Pulichintala was filled to capacity,” Mr. Umamaheswara Rao explained.

About the several projects being planned by Telangana on the Krishna, the Minister said that it had been taken to the notice of Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharati.

Rainwater conservation is being taken up like a movement, says Devineni