Karnataka: Govt to regulate water discharge from major dams

BENGALURU: To avert a repeat of the 2018 and 2019 floods, the government is taking steps to regularly monitor release of water from major dams.
“Learning from past experience, we have put in place a system to prevent devastating floods like last year and the year before that,” said water resources minister Ramesh Jarkiholi.
He’s written to deputy commissioners of six floodprone districts — Belagavi, Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Yadgir, Raichur and Kalaburagi — to monitor water levels in reservoirs and ensure judicious discharge.
Ravinandan Kulkarni, chief engineer of Almatti dam, said inflow has been fluctuating and it recorded 53,631 cusecs on Monday after reaching 65,000 cusecs on Friday, while it is expected to go up again as Maharashtra would continue to discharge water from Rajapur barrage across Krishna depending on the quantity of rainfall it receives. While this has resulted in submergence of three barrages in Belagavi district, officials said there is no sign of flood threat in the Krishna basin yet.
The Irrigation Consultative Committee (ICC) is holding review meetings to ensure better coordination between neighbouring states, said Jarkiholi.
Even Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre has advised the government to ensure water storage level is below 70% of full reservoir level (FRL) throughout the season. “This is the most important aspect of the best practice we need to follow this year,” said KSNDMC director GS Srinivas Reddy.
In 2018, Kodagu witnessed flash floods and massive landslides as the authorities chose to conserve water for next summer at various reservoirs in the Cauvery basin after the state received good early-monsoon rain. The situation got out of hand after neighbouring Kerala started receiving good rain in August, which upped inflow to Karnataka’s reservoirs.
A similar scenario was witnessed in 2019 in North Karnataka when inflow to reservoirs in Krishna basin reached a record high. Discharge from Almatti and the downstream Narayanpura Dam resulted in floods.