TN not getting usual quota of Krishna water due to illegal tapping by AP farmers

 

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Tamil Nadu is not getting the usual quota of Krishna water as it is being illegally tapped by Andhra farmers.

Water Resources Department officials, who had stated earlier that the state would be getting at least 500 cusecs of water before Pongal, say the flow is around 300 to 350 cusecs due to illegal tapping of water from the Canal in Andhra Pradesh.

Officials told Express as per the agreement the state has to get 400 cusecs of water a day during the period from January to April but due to generosity of Andhra Pradesh and request from Tamil Nadu higher officials following a lean monsoon last year, Andhra agreed to provide 1,000 cusecs of water a day.

“Now we are getting 300 to 350 cusecs a day,” a WRD official said.

Interestingly, efforts are on to increase the flow and state public works department has urged Andhra PWD to look into the issue to increase the flow to more than 500 cusecs.

WRD sources said that the state would have got additional one thousand million cubic feet of water is there was no illegal tapping of Krishna water by the ryots.

The discharge of water from Kandaleru reservoir was hit since mid-April following repair works and it has never been normal since then. Even after the repair works in the damaged portion of Kandaleru-Poondi canal in Ubbalamadugu in Andhra Pradesh got over, the flow is still short of the required limits.

Interestingly, this comes as Chennai is struggling to meet its drinking water needs after the failure of monsoon last year.  

Currently, the city has 3.07 million cubic feet of water in the reservoirs of Poondi, Cholavram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam. Last year, the storage during the period was nearly 5 million cubic feet. Metro water officials said the Veeranam lake was filled up before the Mettur water was shut.