The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB), at last, issued the orders on Monday evening, directing Andhra Pradesh to release 2 TMC ft water from the Srisailam reservoir to the Nagarjunasagar dam for meeting the drinking water needs of Hyderabad city and Nalgonda district. Member-Secretary of KRMB Samir Chatterjee stated in the orders that the water shall be released from September 12 to 15 at the rate of 6,000 cusecs through power houses so as to derive the benefits of power generation too with the water. The 2 TMC ft water release from Srisailam is including transmission losses.
Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation) of Telangana C. Muralidhar wrote to KRMB on August 29, requesting release of 2 TMC ft water from Srisailam to Nagarjunasagar for meeting the drinking water needs in Hyderabad city and Nalgonda district. Further, he explained that the water was required to meet the needs till completion of the deepening of approach channel to draw water from Nagarjunasagar even from the level below 500 ft. However, the AP counterpart wrote to the board on September 6 that release of water from Srisailam to Nagarjunsagar could be discussed only after the water level in Srisailam built above the minimum drawing level of Muchumarri-Handri Neeva lift off-take point.