Water woes: upper riparian States blamed

Minister promises expeditious completion of HNSS canal- widening work

Stock-taking: Devineni Umamaheswara Rao at the HNSS canal at Muchumarri on Thursday.

The upstream States of Maharashtra and Karnataka are impounding water in reservoirs and releasing water to Andhra Pradesh downstream only during floods, which is resulting in flash floods. The issue will be taken up with the Central government, Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao has said.

Addressing the media here on Thursday, Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said farmers were facing hardship because of scarcity of irrigation and drinking water as the two upper riparian States were not releasing water until their needs were met.

“Water must be equitably released from the Tungabhadra dam and Almatti reservoir to the Tungabhadra high level and low level canals,” he said.

The Almatti dam had an inflow of 64,000 cusecs and the Narayanpur and Jurala projects were filled to the brim, but water was not being let downstream due to the “selfish interests” of the two States, he said.

Referring to the Handri Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (HNSS) canal widening work, he said the government was spending ₹830 crore on the project. On completion, it would release water to the HNSS, KC Canal, Telugu Ganga, Srisailam Right Branch Canal, and Pothireddipadu head regulator, he said. Water would be released for irrigation and drinking water purposes when the Srisailam reservoir level rises to 834 feet, the Minister said. He promised expeditious completion of the HNSS canal widening work and release of irrigation water to the tail-end ayacut lands.

Deficit rainfall

On rainfall pattern, the Minister said the State received 215 mm rainfall as against the normal of 227 mm. Kurnool district received 150 mm rainfall as against a normal of 180 mm, a deficit of 16.9%, he added. Farmers of Rayalaseema, Nellore, and Prakasam districts were facing lot of hardship as a result of scanty rainfall.

The Minister accused YSR Congress Party president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of causing hurdles to the Polavaram project.

Kurnool MLA S.V. Mohan Reddy, District Collector S. Satyanarayana, Irrigation CEs Narayana Reddy and Jalandhar, SE Chandrasekhar Rao, HNSS SE Narayanaswamy, Telugu Ganga and SRBC engineers and Kurnool RDO Hussain Saheb were present.

The Minister inspected the HNSS canal widening work at Muchumarri and Gargeyapuram. He asked engineers to speed up the work.

The Minister promised to release water to the KC Canal by August 15 and provide irrigation to the standing crops.