Karnataka - Raichur   

Hopes of Tungabhadra farmers revived

Staff Correspondent

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's response positively for cleaning the dam Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy responds positively for cleaning the dam

CRYING FOR ATTENTION: A view of the Tungabhadra Dam.

Raichur: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has said that the Government will take steps to augment the capacity of the Tungabhadra Dam.

During his recent visit to Munirabad, he said that he would get in touch with his counterpart in Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy to discuss steps to be taken to remove silt from the reservoir. At the same time, Mr. Reddy, who visited Raichur recently, responded positively to the statement of Mr. Kumaraswamy.

The Tungabhadra Project, an inter-State scheme at Munirabad in Koppal district, has been catering to the irrigation needs of Raichur and Bellary districts in Karnataka and Anantapur, Kurnool and Kadapa districts in Andhra Pradesh covering a command area of about 4.96 lakh hectares.

But it is said that the life of the Tungabhadra Dam is 300 years and its project life is 100 years.

Because of heavy collection of silt, the impounding capacity of the dam has been decreasing every year affecting irrigation in its command areas. Since its inception (1953), silt accumulation in the Tungabhadra reservoir has been growing because of loss of forest area in its catchment areas and unauthorised cultivation in the dam's backwaters.

The ayacutdars in the command areas of the project have been facing water shortage for irrigation during kharif and rabi seasons. It will be difficult to take up cultivation of summer crops if steps are not taken to arrest further accumulation of silt in the reservoir.

The capacity of the reservoir has been reduced to 104 tmcft as against the designed capacity of 133 tmcft as per the hydrographic surveys conducted in 2005. This has been reducing the availability of water for irrigation.

In 10 years, the designed capacity of the reservoir reduced by about 29 tmcft with an average reduction of 0.75 tmcft every year because of continued accumulation of silt.

Silt has been flowing into the dam from the Hirehalla nallha in Koppal district since 1953. This was not arrested even after the construction of a dam across the nallha.

In recent years, silt accumulation increased owing to hectic mining in the catchment areas of the dam. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh share the water based on the availability in a given year on 1:2 basis. But in the past 25 years, the surplus water during floods has been flowing into the sea.

For the last three decades, the successive governments planned to take steps to augment the storage capacity of the reservoir by removing silt. In 1987, the then Karnataka Government had planned to build a 40 tmcft capacity additional reservoir between Lower Bhadra and Tungabhadra Dam to compensate the loss of storage capacity at the Tungabhadra Dam.

Since 1985, Andhra Pradesh has been planning to build a parallel canal from the Tungabhadra Dam to carry about 40 tmcft surplus water to the drought-prone Anantapur district. In 1991, the Tungabhadra Command Area Development Authority suggested to the Government to raise the height of the crest gates of the Tungabhadra Dam to improve its storage. In 1997, the then Chief Minister J.H.Patel decided to build flood canals and balancing reservoirs in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal system to compensate the loss of storage in the reservoir.

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