Karnataka bails out TS, releases 2 tmc ft of water

Hyderabad: Karnataka came to the rescue of Telangana by addressing the water crisis. The Telangana government has secured 2.25 TMC of water as an emergency release from Karnataka ahead of the parliamentary polls. The State irrigation authorities had made a request in March to the Karnataka government for the release of water from the upper Krishna projects in view of acute water scarcity due to depletion of the water levels in the reservoirs and projects in the river Krishna basin.

Officials said that the Karnataka government responded positively to the request and started releasing water from Narayanpur dam on Wednesday. It would take two and a half days for the water released in Karnataka to reach the Jurala project, flowing down a distance of 167 kilometres. A major worry in taking water from the Karnataka project was the transmission loss during the peak summer. But the loss is expected to be minimal this time, as Karnataka has already been supporting thermal operations at the Raichur power station with regular water supplies to the Guljapur project (112 kms away from Narayanpur). The Jurala project, which is to receive water from Narayanpur dam, is 55 km away.

The State had sought 10 TMC of water from Karnataka. However, Karnataka did not respond immediately in view of the water crisis being faced under the Almatti and Narayanpur dams. Irrigation Secretary Rahuk Bojja wrote to his Karnataka counterpart once again, recently requesting at least 5 TMC. The Karnataka government responded positively to the request made by the State after assessing its own water requirements for the next three months. Chief Engineer Vijay Bhaskar Reddy and his team of officials also met irrigation officials from Karnataka in Bengaluru recently.