Krishna delta ryots get water, Vijayawada

VIJAYAWADA: Bringing relief to the farmers of Krishna delta, the state government on Friday decided to release water for nurseries. Chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy directed the irrigation officials to release water from the Nagarjunsagar reservoir from Friday itself. Nearly 15 tmc of water over a period of 30 days will be released to both the eastern and western deltas of Krishna.

“It will take three days for the water to reach Prakasam barrage from where it will be released into canals,” confirmed NSP chief engineer Sarathchandra Reddy. Despite the opposition making a hue and cry over the delay in release of water, the irrigation department refused to yield citing low reserves in Nagarjunasagar. Finally, the CM took the final call at a high-level meeting with the irrigation minister and senior officials.

Welcoming the move, TDP legislator Devineni Umamaheswara Rao said that the officials acted with criminal negligence resulting in loss of nearly a fortnight of time before the farmers went for nurseries. According to official sources, the authorities would release nearly 2,000 cusecs per day and slowly increase the quantum to 3,000 cusecs. The move would benefit 25 lakh acres of land in Krishna, West Godavari, Khammam (Krishna Eastern Delta), Guntur and Prakasam (Krishna Western Delta) districts.
While nearly 8 tmc of water is required for KED itself, the KWD requirement would be 5 tmc more. The remaining 2 tmc will be used to fill the drinking water tanks along the canals in all the five districts. “Nurseries will take 25 days to grow completely and we hope that monsoon will become active and give us rains by the time the nurseries are ready,” said Kolla Venkatramaiah, farmer of Vuyyur.

The officials were doubtful of the water level in Nagarjunasagar project as both the deltas require nearly 200 tmcs of water per year and it would be very difficult to meet the crop season requirements once the water is released for nurseries. “Notwithstanding the total reserves in the projects, the state government will be held responsible for release of water in the coming days once the water is released for growing the nurseries. The total available water in the sagar (including the water in the dead storage level) is itself just around 130 tmc and hence it might not be wise to release water for nurseries,” the irrigation department opined.

However, peasants’ leader MVS Nagireddy chided the officials for their callous attitude in resolving the crisis early. He said that more than 37 tmcs of water is available above the DSL level at Sagar and government’s decision delayed due to lack of proper inputs from the field officials. While KED needed nearly 140 tmc for khariff, the farmers under KWD will require another 60tmc till the end of the crop season. “Government has taken a calculated risk with a hope that monsoon would bring good rains in the coming days and improve the water table at major reservoirs-Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam,” said school education minister K Pardhasaradhi.