The prospects of Sriramsagar Project (SRSP) getting inflows from the upstream remain grim due to the inactive monsoon over Upper Godavari Basin, although the authorities lifted all the 14 gates of Babli Barrage built across Godavari in Nanded district of Maharashtra, located just 7 km upstream of Kandakurthy in Nizamabad district where the river enters Telangana, on Saturday.
When the gates were lifted in the presence of engineers of the Water Resources Department of Maharashtra, Irrigation Department of Telangana and the Central Water Commission (CWC) around 10 am on Saturday, July 1, 2023, the barrage had only 0.47 tmc ft water storage against its capacity of 2.74 tmc ft. Sriramsagar received only 0.71 tmc ft water with rains in the local catchment areas in June as against 5 tmc ft water reaching the reservoir in June last year.
In its judgement given on February 28, 2013, the Supreme Court had directed Maharashtra to keep open the gates of Babli Barrage from July 1 to October 28, 120 days at a stretch, to allow Sriramsagar to get inflows from the upstream to serve its ayacut of 7.28 lakh hectares (nearly 18 lakh acres) in the erstwhile districts of Adilabad, Medak, Nizamabad, Karimanagar, Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam.
It had also directed Maharashtra to lift the barrage gates for one day, March 1 every year, to let 0.6 tmc ft water downstream for drinking needs. The gates would remain closed from October 29 of year to June 30 next year but the water utilisation by Maharashtra during the period shall not exceed 2.74 tmc ft.
According to engineers of the Irrigation Department (Telangana), Babli Barrage had only 0.06 tmc ft water storage in 2016, 0.048 tmc ft in 2018, 0.42 tmc ft in 2019, 0.628 tmc ft in 2020, 0.94 tmc ft in 2021 and 1 tmc ft in 2022 while lifting of gates on July 1. As on Saturday morning, SRSP had a storage of 20.068 tmc ft water against 23.432 tmc ft storage it had on July 1 in 2022
Engineers from CWC – Executive Engineer Venkateshwarlu and Sub-Divisional Engineer Prajeeth, from Maharashtra – Executive Engineer (Babli) Bansod and Deputy EE (Babli) R.R.Potdar and from Telangana – EE (SRSP) M. Chakrapani and Assistant EE (SRSP) M. Vamshi were present to oversee the lifting of the barrage gates.
