14 Babli gates to close down on Oct 29

​Nizamabad: In compliance with the Supreme Court’s orders, the Maharashtra Government will close down the 14 gates of the Babli project, built on River Godavari on October 31 in the Dharmabad Taluk of Nanded district.

As a result, inflows will be stopped into the Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP) as the gates will remain closed till June 30 next year and the Telangana State, situated at the lower level will not get water. All the necessary arraignments for the closing of gates have been made.

It may be recalled that the Maharashtra government constructed the Babli project at an estimated cost of Rs 261 crore by utilising 2.73 TMC of water. As the project got mired in several litigations and controversies, the Supreme Court ordered that the 14 gates be closed for eight months.

With the result, the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chouhan and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan clsed down the gate at a ceremony on October 29, 2013 and stopped the inflows from River Godavari.

While the gates will remain closed from October 29 to June 30 every year and again opened on July 1 till October 28 (the monsoon period) during the time when water from River Godavari will flow into SRSP.

Farmers have expressed fears that the 18 lakh acres near the ayacut region of the SRSP would become barren if the gates remain closed for eight months.

However, as Maharashtra received torrential rains during this year, the SRSP received 90,000 cusecs of water this year when the 14 gates were lifted on July 1.

The river went completely dry during this summer owing to the deficit rainfall over the last two years. This year, the farmers heaved a sigh of relief as there were copious inflows.