Telangana Government has requested the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) planning the interlinking of Godavari-Cauvery rivers to consider the Godavari-Krishna link phase only after the completion or at least active construction of Mahanadi-Godavari link of the interlinking of rivers project since surplus water is not available for diversion in Godavari at 75% dependability.
Sending the observations of Telangana on the discussions held on November 15 as part of the 70th meeting of the governing body of NWDA on Godavari-Cauvery link proposal, Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar wrote to the Chief Engineer of the nodal agency explained that a dam proposed by erstwhile Andhra Pradesh at Inchampalli for utilisation of Godavari waters in Telangana region was strongly objected to by Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh due to submergence issues in their territories.
Now that the fresh proposal too is for taking up diversion from Inchampalli, it might again lead to objections by Chhattisgarh as the location is very close to the inter-state border. Sammakkasagar Barrage already constructed by Telangana at 24 km downstream of the site proposed for Inchampalli Barrage would also cause difficulties in routing the flood as the lag time would be very less between the two barrages.
Further, he stated that the downstream utilisations from the proposed site in Telangana were to a tune of about 158 tmc ft including 38 tmc ft for J. Chokka Rao Devadula Lift Irrigation Scheme, 70 tmc ft for Sita Rama LIS and another 50 tmc ft for Sammakkasagar would get affected. “Any water for diversion can be contemplated only after ensuring firm availability of the requirements of Telangana and it involves complex matrix of availability and distribution”, Mr. Muralidhar wrote.
He pointed out that the Central Water Commission (CWC) and NWDA had ascertained that there was no surplus water available for diversion at 75% dependability for Godavari-Cauvery link at Inchampalli, the Inchampalli (Gopdavari)-Pulichintala (Krishna) link phase too could not be taken up since the source is same. The Inchampalli-Pulichintala phase could be considered only after the completion of Mahanadi-Godavari link, he suggested.
