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R’seema farmers warn of drought

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U Sudhakar Reddy | TNN | May 11, 2020, 05:16 IST

Hyderabad: Rayalaseema farmers on Sunday warned of a severe drought this year, raising concerns over the implementation of Krishna River Water Management Board’s decision to deplete water from 814 ft level of Srisailam reservoir to 807 ft.

Rayalaseema Saguneeti Sadhana Samithi (RSSS) said Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers received good inflows in the 2019-2020 water year. “There have been good inflows which give us an opportunity to create reserves for use during lean years. This was explained in the concept of carry-over storage by Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal-1,” Bojja Dasaradharami Reddy, president, RSSS said.

Sources said that carry-over storage system was not followed during water-surplus years. Due to non-implementation of KWDT1’s suggestions to construct reservoirs for allocated water and carry-over reservoirs to store floodwater, Rayalaseema projects could not utilise its allotted quantity of water from Tungabhadra dam, thus, the unused Tungabhadra water was made to flow into Srisailam reservoir and is being accounted as floodwater in Krishna river. As the Srisailam reservoir’s minimum drawdown level (MDDL) is not being maintained, Rayalaseema is deprived of surplus water.

“KWDT-2 has made provisions to maintain the carry-over storage in Srisailam reservoir and Nagarjuna Sagar Project during water surplus years,” said Reddy. Subsequently, the state revised 834 ft MDDL. However, water is being drawn up to 790 ft level of Srisailam reservoir, said sources