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Farmers in dire straits as TBICC defers water supply
Criticism is brewing against ruling party MLA’s and ministers for failing to impress upon the Tungabhadra Board Irrigation Consultative Committee(TBICC) to release water at least for drinking purpose.
Anantapur: Criticism is brewing against ruling party MLA’s and ministers for failing to impress upon the Tungabhadra Board Irrigation Consultative Committee(TBICC) to release water at least for drinking purpose.
Highlights:
- Says it will wait for more inflows
- Water in PABR and CBR will last no more than three weeks
- Farmers accuse district ministers of not putting forward convincing argument before Board
District ministers Kaluva Srinivas and Paritala Sunitha are accused of not doing anything to convince TFICC for early release of water, despite the district being in a precarious position on the irrigation and drinking water supply front.
“If they had done any home work on this front even before the TBICC meeting at Bengaluru on Sunday, a favourable decision would have emerged,” farmers opined. They are a livid lot as no people’s representative is available in their constituency as all of them had camped in Nandyal to work for the victory of TDP candidate.
The TBICC decision to wait for more inflows into Tungabhadra dam and defer water release has disappointed the farmers as well as thousands of people, who depend on water from Tungabhadra, which are stored in Penna Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir (PABR) and Chitravathi Balancing Reservoir (CBR). The Tungabhadra dam has 49 tmc ft of water stored but the authorities decided to wait for more inflows as the dam storage capacity is more than 100 tmc ft.
About 2,080 villages are dependent on Tungabhadra Dam for drinking water purpose. These villages are supplied drinking water through the PABR and CBR.
Currently, PABR has 1.50 tmc ft of water that is catering to drinking water supply. These supplies will last for only 20 days. CBR has 0.170 tmc ft available and will be sufficient for another week’s supply.
Tungabhadra High Level Canal (HLC) ayacut acreage is 2.90 lakh spread over in Anantapur, Kurnool and Kadapa districts. Paddy is grown in more than 44,000 acres in the district. Farmers have tilled their lands and kept paddy transplants ready expecting water release by TBICC.
The failure of monsoon and the reluctance of the Board to release water even for drinking water purpose has landed the farmers in dire-straits. In the event of no water inflows into the Tungabhadra reservoir, the farmers will be forced to declare a crop holiday, feel the irrigation officials.
HLC superintendent engineer TV Seshagiri Rao told The Hans India that the TBICC decision is a big blow and if the existing water was exhausted then law and order problems might crop up as people would be forced to come on to the streets with water tubs demanding water. The Irrigation Advisory Board which meets on August 22 would take stock of the situation and the issue would be taken to the notice of collector Veerapandian for further action.
By Ravi P Benjamin
