Rapid depletion of water in 2 dams

The rapid depletion of water both in the Lower Manair Dam (LMD) reservoir in Karimnagar district and in the MidManair Dam (MMD) reservoir of Rajanna Sircilla district indicates the possibility of a severe water crisis in the days to come.

Other than Karimnagar district, even Warangal, Rajanna Sircilla, and Siddipet districts could face an acute shortage of drinking water, which is supplied from the LMD reservoir in Karimnagar and the MMD reservoir in Rajanna Sircilla districts.

The rise in temperature to above 42ºC and the consequent drying of lakes, tanks, and reservoirs along with rapid depletion of groundwater levels are resulting in the decrease of water levels in the reservoirs.

Against its storage capacity of 24 tmc ft of water, the LMD has only 4 TMCs of water, and the MMD, against its storage capacity of 25.873 tmc ft, presently has only 3.84 tmc ft. The dead storage level at LMD is 2.2 tmc ft and the MMD 2.5 tmc ft.

Around 270 cusecs of water are supplied daily from the LMD to Karimnagar, Warangal, Siddipet, Sircilla, and Vemulawada to cater to the drinking water requirements, and to the Subashnagar reservoir in Karimnagar along with the adjoining villages that were recently merged into the Karimnagar corporation.

Officials of the irrigation department are utilising the water in the MMD for Mission Bhagaritha. Under this project, officials are supplying 44 cusecs every day from the MMD to around 447 villages in Choppadandi, Sircilla, and Vemulawada constituencies.

With erratic tap water supply and a sizeable reduction in the amount of water supplied to Karimnagar, the city is already facing the trial of water scarcity. “If the heat continues for another 15 days, then water levels in the LMD and MMD will fall to dead storage level,” said an official from the irrigation department.

“In that case, nothing other than either heavy rainfall in the monsoon or release of water from the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) project to the MMD reservoir, and from there to the LMD reservoir, can rescue the four districts. Without either of the two, the districts are likely to suffer from severe and acute shortage of water in the near future.”

LMD executive engineer Nivas said that the unusually high temperatures accompanied by heat waves was causing rapid evaporation of water from the reservoirs. Nearly 100 cusecs of water was being lost to evaporation from the LMD and 90 cusecs from the MMD reservoir.