Tungabhadra board meet on May 19

Anantapur: The Tungabhadra Board would hold its meeting at Jala Soudha in Hyderabad on May 19 to discuss about the water allocations and other pending issues including modernization of canals before the season of 2023-24.

 

The meeting will be presided over by its chairman DM Rajpure. Officials and board members from AP, Karnataka and Telangana will be attending the meeting.

The board would discuss the allocations for major shareholders of AP and Karnataka as also for a part of Telangana after assessing the available water sources through damasha. Prior to that, the board meeting would review the status of the pending works vis-a-vis repairs and maintenance of the badly damaged Tungabhadra high level main canal for more than 100km up to the AP borders from 0 milestone of the Tungabhadra dam.

 

This has been the main source for Anantapur, parts of Kadapa and Kurnool areas.

 

The high level main canal got badly damaged at several places and even the decades-old bridges in Anantapur and Bellary district were in a worse condition. Last year, an auto rickshaw fell into the HLMC bridge in Rayardurg area.

 

Similarly, low level canal was also facing worse conditions due to poor maintenance as water piping in the Karnataka area was adversely impacting the sources towards Kurnool



district.  

 The Tungabhadra Board allocated 26.125tmc-ft of water to the high level main canal, a major source of drinking and irrigation purposes for the Rayalaseema region from the reservoir, for the year 2022-23 irrigation season, based on prorate, and assessed total yield in the reservoir. However, this was increased to 32.81tmc-ft after the heavy floods during the rainy season.

             

The HLMC connects with Anantapur, Kurnool and Kadapa areas including Pulivendula branch canal and the Kadapa-Kurnool canal of Kurnool city.  HLMC sources are stored at PABR (Penna Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir) near Uravakonda to meet the needs of drinking water projects of Anantapur headquarters and other areas in the region.

The  dam authorities assessed that 171tmc-ft will be available in the dam, based on inflows and rains in upstream parts of western ghats at the initial rainy season.

As per damasha, the board formally estimated the total yield in the rainy season and made allocations to the dependent canals - high level main canal, low level canal and to power generation units along with the power canal of the TB dam last year, based on inflows from upstream parts of the Western Ghats.