The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Prospects of water release to Chennai dim

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 16, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Prospects of water release to Chennai dim

By M. Malleswara Rao

Hyderabad, Sept. 15. The assistance by Andhra Pradesh, if any, for mitigating the drinking water hardship of Chennai, is unlikely to be big.

The Government has provided indications to this effect citing the present scenario of water availability. A State team led by the Principal Secretary, Irrigation, C. V. S. K. Sarma, held parleys with Tamil Nadu officials at Srikalahasti and inspected the Kandaleru reservoir today to explore the possibility of releasing release water to the Telugu Ganga canal, but the outcome was not tangible.

Water level in the Kandaleru reservoir fell well below the level of the offtake point of the canal to Chennai ruling out any possibility of despatching water from dead storage by gravitation. The reservoir has only 1.4 tmcft as against its full capacity of 68 tmcft.

`Lift' option

A solution being considered by the two sides was to "lift" the water using heavy duty pumpsets. But then, only 0.5 tmcft can be lifted as at least one tmcft of water has to be left in the reservoir. Both sides were stated to have expressed reservations about this option due to this negative aspect.

If the water for Telugu Ganga is to come from the Srisalam project as sought by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, the dam has to release at least 50 tmcft, and not 15 tmcft. Such a possibility is dim since officials are struggling to satisfy conflicting regional claims within the State for release of water from Srisailam.

The 408-km-long Telugu Ganga canal has several balancing reservoirs. The

largest of them Somasila, itself needs at least 30 tmcft to attain this level. This project today has only 5 tmcft while its full capacity is 74 tmcft.

It may be recalled that Srisailam waters were released into the Telugu Ganga on September 4 for solving the drinking water problem at Nellore and Gudur. The canal is now flowing up to Somasila, the Major Irrigation Minister, P. Lakshmaiah, told The Hindu here today.

The Minister said Tamil Nadu's request for water was being considered and help would be rendered if sufficient water was available. Meanwhile, Karnataka and Maharashtra have not responded so far to the State's plea for releasing five tmcft of water each as their share of water to Chennai.

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