Even as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are fighting it out over the controversial Polavaram project over the River Godavari, almost complete failure of rains this year so far has left a crippling impact on the Kharif sowing operations in both the States.
More than a month has passed to the Kharif agriculture season, major irrigation projects on the two major rivers of Godavari and Krishna in both the States have not received any inflows so far.
Both the rivers emerge from Maharashtra. While the River Krishna passes through Karnataka before entering Telangana and continuing its forward journey towards Andhra Pradesh, Godavari enters Telangana from Maharashtra and
then ends its journey in Andhra Pradesh.
All the States have key irrigation projects across the river and with no rains in the catchment areas of both the rivers in all these States, there has been no inflows of water in to the downstream projects of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
With monsoon failing in Karnataka, the State was unlikely to release any water from its two major projects on Krishna — Almatti and Narayanpur.
Every year, Karnataka releases water only after its dams fill to the capacity and water passes through Jurala project of Telangana before reaching Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar from where the water is supplied mainly to Krishna delta through Prakasham barrage.
Situation is so serious that officials say during last 47 years this is first time that not a drop of inflow has reached Srisailam. last time such a situation was recorded was in 1967-68. During this period the best year was 2007-08 when 278 TMC ft of water had reached the project in the first 12 days of July.
Officials said normally June and July witness little inflows but the month of August and September are very crucial. They are worried that with no inflows in the Karnataka projects, even if the region gets some rain in the coming months, not much water was likely to reach Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects. Whatever water reaches these projects will not be sufficient to meet the requirement of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh leading to more disputes between the two States.
With no water reaching Nagarjuna Sagar, farmers in two districts of Telangana and four districts of Andhra Pradesh are facing a serious crisis and no agriculture activities has been taken up there. Farmers are being forced to labour under the National Rural Guarantee Scheme.
Projects on Krishna River irrigate more than 17 lakh acres of land in Telangana and 38 lakh acres in Andhra Pradesh. Godavari projects irrigate 11.4 lakh acres in Telangana and 12.6 lakh acres in Andhra Pradesh.
Situation in Godavari projects is also equally bad as with no rains in the catchment areas in Maharashtra, there has been no inflow in to Sriramsagar project in Nizamabad, the first project on Godavari after it enters Telangana.
After passing though five districts of Telangana, the project enters Andhra Pradesh in West Godavari district where the massive Polavaram project was being constructed.