El Nino to affect irrigation Falling levels at all major dams threaten two states

With reports that the El-Niño factor will be substantial this year too, the two Telugu states are now worried about its effects on the inflows into the Krishna and Godavari.

After bifurcation, with each state trying to draw more water last year, the storage at Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar Dams have already reached record lows and the Sriram Sagar project, the only Major Irrigation Project across Godavari in Telangana, is struggling with reduced inflows.

“In a normal year we should realise at least 750 TMC ft of Krishna water at Srisailam Dam, so that the needs of both irrigation and drinking water could be met sufficiently, but last year we received only 608 TMC ft. If this year too the El-nino is going to be a factor, it will be difficult for us to manage things in Kharif season,” said engineering-in-chief of Telangana C. Muralidhar.

He said delayed or insufficient rains this year will make the situation worse due to the fact that almost all major reservoirs in Karnataka and the Telugu states have reached dead storage levels compared to last year. For example in 2013, only 150 TMC ft was realised in Krishna, hence there were no releases for irrigation under Nagarjunasagar canals for both Kharif and Rabi crops.

“Before last year it was a horrible situation to manage, we had to declare a crop holiday due to meagre inflows.” Mr Muralidhar added.

The flows in Krishna is highly dependent on the rains in Mahabaleswar of the Western Ghats. Unless Almatti and Narayanpur and Tungabhadra reservoirs in Karnataka fill up first, water will not reach Jurala, Srisailam.

Both states have so far not approved the operation manuals being prepared by the Krishna River Management Board. KRMB even post- poned the meet to finalise its plan for the two states for the coming Kharif season.

Meanwhile, the situation on Godavari based projects is also not good. Last year only 17 TMC ft of water reac- hed Sriramsagar project in Telangana which affected release of waters for crops for the entire year. “Till December 2013, it was okay. We even lifted the gates and sent flood waters to the main river, but in 2014 the situation became worse; if the same thing happens this year, we cannot imagine the plight of farmers under the 8lakh-acre ayacut,” said SRSP executive engineer Mr Rama Rao.