Irrigation authorities of Karnataka have started releasing water from Narayanpur dam in Yadgir district to Jurala reservoir in Jogulamba-Gadwal district from Wednesday night to meet the drinking water needs in the combined Mahabubnagar district.
According to the information received by the authorities of Jurala, water release was started at the rate of 500 cusecs on Wednesday, and it was increased to 2,110 cusecs on Thursday morning. After 2 p.m. on Thursday, the discharge of water through the spillway of Narayanpur dam was increased to over 8,000 cusecs.
KCR’s request
It was after a request made by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to his Karnataka counterpart H.D. Kumaraswamy over phone on April 30 to release 3 tmc ft water from Narayanpur to Jurala to meet the drinking water needs in Mahabubnagar district.
He also explained the scarcity of water being faced by drinking water schemes including Mission Bhagiratha. Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi also wrote a letter to his counterpart in Karnataka with the same request.
On May 3, Mr. Kumaraswamy called up Mr. Rao and informed him about his government's decision to release 2.5 tmc ft water.
Accordingly, the irrigation authorities of Karnataka started releasing water from Almatti dam to Narayanpur on May 4 to build up level in the latter so that water release to Jurala could be taken up.
Live storage
On Wednesday morning the gross storage in Narayanpur according to the Central Water Commission was 18.7 tmc ft and the live storage according to Karnataka authorities was 8.01 tmc ft.
According to the irrigation authorities, it would take about four days time to release the total quantity of 2.5 tmc ft from Narayanpur dam at the rate of 8,000 cusecs and the flow is expected to reach Jurala in three days.
