The Hindu : Karnataka News : State in a race to use its share of Krishna waters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 16, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

State in a race to use its share of Krishna waters

T.V. Sivanandan

Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra well ahead in irrigation works

GULBARGA: Andhra Pradesh, one of the Krishna river riparian States, has utilised its share of 800 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water under Scheme A of the Bachawat Tribunal Award and taken up projects for staking its claim to the surplus river waters. Maharashtra is completing projects that will account for most of its share. However, Karnataka is still a long way away from utilising its share of 729 tmcft of water under the scheme.

The situation

According to the official figures available with The Hindu , Karnataka has so far used only 505.49 tmcft of water in irrigation projects in the Krishna Basin.

Although it will shortly complete projects to use a further 104.57 tmcft of water, work on facilities to utilise the rest of its share is in the initial stages.

Official sources said 26 projects use 108.33 tmcft of water to irrigate 2,61,444 hectares of land in the Krishna basin. Twenty-seven other major and medium irrigation projects use 397.16 tmcft of water to irrigate 12,51,225 hectares. Sources said ongoing projects will have the capacity to irrigate 5,94,402 hectares. Projects to utilise the remaining portion of the State's share under Scheme A are in the pipeline.

Completed projects

According to an official document, the 26 major medium irrigation projects which have been completed include Ghataprabha I and II (quantity of water used - 32.45 tmcft; irrigation potential created - 1,39,383 hectares); Tunga anicut (11.5 tmcft, 8,704 hectares), Tungabhadra Right Bank lower level canal (22.5 tmcft, 37,504 hectares), Vanivilas Sagar (8.2 tmcft, 9,190 hectares), Vijayanagar channels (12.05 tmcft, 12,210 hectares), Ambiligola (1.4 tmcft, 2,955 hectares), Anjanapura (2.5 tmcft, 6,736 hectares), Areshankara (0.38 tmcft, 1,255 hectares), Bhadra anicut (3.10 tmcft, 4,466 hectares), Chandrampalli (1.90 tmcft, 5,223 hectares), Chitwadgi (0.26 tmcft, 891 hectares), Dharma (2.2 tmcft, 5,668 hectares), Gayathri (0.45 tmcft, 2,305 hectares), Hagaribommannahalli (1.4 tmcft, 5,757 hectares), Hattikuni (2 tmcft, 2,966 hectares), Jambadahalla (0.7 tmcft, 1,538 hectares), Kalaskop (0.33 tmcft, 1,143 hectares), Kanakanala (0.4 tmcft, 2,064 hectares), Kalchi weir (0.53 tmcft, 1,275 hectares), Nagathana (0.08 tmcft, 650 hectares), and Narayanapura (0.6 tmcft, 1,624 hectares).

Estimated cost

Sources said the cost of ongoing major and medium irrigation projects has been estimated at Rs. 16,175.32 crores. Till March 2004, Rs. 11,397.12 crores was spent on the projects.

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