Telangana seeks 5,000 cusecs Krishna water from Karnataka to save crops

Telangana Tourism Minister Jupally Krishna Rao and ruling Congress MLAs have sought the release of Krishna river water from Karnataka reservoirs to protect standing crops in downstream Telangana.

The delegation met Karnataka Chief Minister D K Shivakumar in Bengaluru on Tuesday and requested a regulated release of 5,000 cusecs of water daily for a month. They said crops under the Jurala, Nettempadu, Bhima and Koilsagar irrigation projects were at a critical stage and needed immediate water. Together, these projects serve around 5.5 lakh acres. Shivakumar responded positively to the request, according to officials.

The appeal came amid protests by farmers in the Jurala command area of Jogulamba Gadwal district over the shortage of irrigation water. The BRS held a protest at the project on September 21, while BJP state president N Ramchander Rao was stopped the following day while attempting to meet protesting farmers.

The water issue has also triggered a political exchange in Telangana. Jupally Krishna Rao has questioned the previous BRS government over the lack of additional storage capacity at Jurala. He said the project has a capacity of more than 9 TMC, but around 3 TMC is affected by silt and another 3 TMC needs to be preserved for drinking-water requirements until June 2027.

Meanwhile, Telangana officials released water into the Jurala right canal on Wednesday after rainfall in upstream areas increased inflows. The project recorded around 2,687 cusecs of inflow, allowing irrigation water to be released to the command area.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had also spoken to Shivakumar and sought the release of water from Karnataka’s Narayanpur reservoir to support farmers in the combined Mahbubnagar region.

with inputs from PTI