Chennai may get Krishna water from October

Fresh floods rekindle hopes among farmers in Nellore and Prakasam districts

Hopes brighten: The Somasila reservoir in Nellore district is getting an average inflow of 1.5 tmcft per day in the wake of fresh floods in the Krishna.

With the Somasila reservoir filling up fast in the wake of fresh floods in the Krishna, the parched metropolis of Chennai can expect to get its quota of Krishna water from early next month.

The discharge from Almatti and Narayanpur dams in the upper riparian state of Karnataka was stepped up to a huge 1.74 lakh cusecs and 1.87 lakh cusecs on Friday respectively in the wake of copious rains in the catchment areas, as a result of which the storage in Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar in Andhra Pradesh went up to 180 tmcft and 299 tmcft feet respectively.

With the Veligodu Balancing Reservoir in Penna basin almost full, the Somasila reservoir in Nellore district is also getting filled quicly as the inflows doubled to over 15,317 cusecs on Friday. As a result, storage went up to 25.96 tmcft.

“We expect discharge from the Pothireddypadu to go up to 48,000 cusecs in the coming days. Somasila reservoir can be expected to reach the full capacity of 78 tmcft by early next month,” Nellore Circle Irrigation Superintendent B.S.V. Prasada Rao told

The Hindu .

“Once the storage touches the 35 tmcft mark in Somasila reservoir in a week or so, Krishna water will be released to Kandaleru and after building storage to meet the drinking water needs of Tirupati, water will be released to Chennai in the first week or second week of October,” sources in the Telugu Ganga project said. Chennai is entitled to 12,000 mcft under the Telugu Ganga Project after accounting for seepage and evaporation losses.

The fresh floods have rekindled hopes among Prakasam and Nellore farmers, who have been hit hard by successive years of drought.

“The State Government should ensure release of at least 60 tmcft of Krishna water to farmers coming under the Nagarjunasagar Right Bank Canal (NRBC) Ayacut in the light of fresh floods in Krishna,” Prakasam District Development Forum president Ch. Ranga Rao said in Ongole. “We will not keep quiet even if there is a shortage of one tmcft in the water that is released to Prakasam district, at a time when major reservoirs across the Krishna in the State have a combined storage of over 479 tmcft of water,” he said.