Water abundant for rabi

Hyderabad, October 14 : With all the reservoirs, except Nagarjuna Sagar, brimming with water due to the recent heavy rains, the irrigation department is gearing up to release water to about 30 lakh acres during rabi this year in Telangana.

Plans are afoot to release water to 22 lakh acres under heavy projects and to another eight lakh acres under middle and small projects.Under heavy, medium, small scale and IDC schemes, on an average only 23.35 lakh acres were getting water despite the scope for supplying water to 63.52 lakh acres annually.

During the last eight years, the highest water supply was done during 2014-15, 28.15 lakh acres got water under all projects. In 2014-15, the lowest, i.e., 9.74 lakh acres got water. In 2015-16, 21.57 lakh acres were supplied with water.

The government is hoping that Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir will also get filled as Srisailam dam was full and rains may shower till December within Krishna basin limits.

Leaving RDS, about 20 lakh acres - 9.68 lakh acres under SRSP, 6.40 lakh acres under Nagarjuna Sagar - could get irrigation water from all major projects. Two to three lakh acres will get water from AMRP, ASRP, Devadula, Ellampalli, Kalwakurthy, Bheema, Nettempadu, Komuram Bheem, Koilsagar, Singur projects.