VIJAYAWADA: In a relief to farmers, the Krishna River Board Management (KRMB) has directed the Telangana Water Resources Department to release the pending 2 tmcft water to Andhra Pradesh in the next eight days through the Nagarjuna Sagar Left Canal (NSLC). The water will be helpful in saving standing crops in about 2.3 lakh acres in Zone-3 under NSLC ayacut.
According to Alla Venkata Gopalakrisha Rao, member of the apex committee of the State Water Resources Department, A Paramesham, member secretary of KRMB, directed the Telangana Irrigation Department’s Engineer-in-Chief V Muralidhar late on Tuesday night to release the water with immediate effect.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Gopalakrishna Rao and Chairman of NSLBC project committee Y Pullaiah Chowdary said KRMB had issued an order on March 20 to release 4 tmcft of water to the State through NSLC.
“However, after 26.7 per cent of losses, utilisation has only been around 1.9 tmcft. With this, the required levels could not be maintained in the canals, leaving tail-end regions like Nuzvid, Gannavaram, Nandigama and others without water. Therefore, the remaining 2.1 tmcft of water should be immediately released to provide second wetting to the standing crop,” they said.
They added that crops would be damaged if 1,500 cusecs of water is not released daily up to April 10. According to them, the Telangana Irrigation E-in-C would release water as per the order, and suggested to his Andhra Pradesh counterpart to take steps to contain the losses so that water could be diverted to tail-end of the Krishna delta region.