With the city facing a bleak water scenario this summer, a team of Water Resources Department officials will travel to Hyderabad on January 9 seeking the release of Krishna water and also discuss the water-sharing issue.
According to sources, officials from Tamil Nadu would seek discharge of 12,000 million cubic feet (mcft) of water that is due to Chennai as per the agreement between Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu under the Krishna water supply project.
It may be recalled that water from the Kandaleru reservoir located upstream in Andhra Pradesh was released for a brief period of one month since September-end last year.
Poondi reservoir, which is the primary storage point in Chennai, realised only 1,600 mcft of Krishna water then. Though the Andhra Pradesh authorities assured the release of water again in mid-November, the request of Tamil Nadu was not fulfilled.
Chennai had earlier received nearly 2,200 mcft from Andhra Pradesh between January and March last year.
Total storage
At the meeting in Hyderabad, the team will stress on the need to release water as early as possible as the city’s reservoirs are fast drying up. Total storage has dipped alarmingly to 12% of their capacity. Representatives from other States — Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana and Andhra Pradesh — are likely to attend the meeting convened by the Central Water Commission to discuss issues of water sharing with Tamil Nadu.
As per the Telugu Ganga project, the then unified AP, Maharashtra and Karnataka have to jointly release 15,000 mcft to Tamil Nadu.
Entire share
However, the State has not received its entire share since the implementation of the project in 1996.
The meeting is likely to discuss the modalities of water sharing and the need for accountability among the States.
