Former Anantapur MP and senior YSRC leader from the district, Ananta Venkatrami Reddy on Monday led a group of farmers to the district Collector urging him to take immediate action to get water released from the various reservoirs and dams in the district to protect standing crops.
Speaking to The Hindu after giving a representation and apprising the Collector of the situation in the district, he said that there was 2.5 tmcft of water in the Mid Pennar dam (MPR dam) and more than 1.5 TMC of water in Penna Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir (PABR), having received inflows from the Tungabhadra dam through the Tungabhadra project High level Canal (TBPHLC) which is the lifeline of Anantapur district.
Helpless situation“In a scenario in which the Srisailam dam is full and the Jeedipalli reservoir is the last reservoir currently in the HNSS project, which lifts water from Srisailam dam and through a series of lifts brings the water to the district about to be filled by on Monday, and additional water expected to be lifted from Srisailam, given the bountiful conditions in the Krishna catchment upstream, farmers in the district are staring helplessly at wilting crops. This cannot be allowed,” he said adding he had apprised the Collector of the same.
He appealed to the district Collector that suitable changes be made to the decisions taken in the Irrigation Advisory Board (IAB) meeting held some time ago to allow release of water to save crops such as paddy and cotton while also allowing the remainder of farmers to go in for early rabi operations in the face of the almost complete loss of groundnut crop this year.
Mr. Reddy said that he had also written a letter regarding the same to the irrigation minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and the Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu urging them for action in this regard.
