As the wait for the release of Krishna waters from Koyna seems unending, the State government has decided to quench the thirst of villagers in Belagavi and Bagalkot districts by releasing water from the Hidkal dam. Officers, however, have cautioned that there are some logistics issues that could weaken the attempt to take water to the border villages.
Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who arrived here to attend the funeral of the former MLA Sambhaji Patil, announced in Belagavi on Saturday that Maharashtra’s response was disappointing. “We will keep sending them requests, but in the meantime we will release water from the Hidkal dam,” he said. He said that of the 4 tmcft of live storage in the dam, one tmcft will be released.
“The State government decided to release water from the Hidkal dam on Saturday. But we will be lucky if it crosses the border of Belagavi and Bagalkot on May 30,” say irrigation officers. They fear that a third of the flow may be lost due to high temperatures, parched land and farmers who draw water through pumpsets to save their crops along the canals.
The one tmcft of the Ghataprabha water is expected to reach the Krishna river course at Shegunashi village in Athani taluk near the Belagavi-Bagalkot border. That is a distance of over 90 km and the journey is treacherous. It should reach Dhupdal weir which is 22 km away. Then, it should reach the distribution centre in Mugalkhod. From there, the water is released in blocks of 500 cusecs to pass through Nidagundi to Shegunashi.
“The first issue is whether the quantum released is the amount received at the end. Mid-summer releases have a high evaporation rate of 20 %-30 %. So, nearly 300 million cubic feet of water will be lost and around 700 million cubic feet may flow into the Krishna,” said an officer from the Irrigation Department.
“The second concern is the bigger problem of preventing farmers from utilising the water for irrigation. The Minister has instructed Regional Commissioner Tushar Girinath to tell farmers that this water is meant for drinking and they should not draw it for their sugarcane crop. But this is difficult to enforce. Can you possibly keep a watch over 100 km of canal by posting hundreds of policemen on both sides? That would not only be difficult, but could it also lead to law and order problems,” he said.
The third issue that has not been discussed till now is that Hidkal dam provides drinking water to Belagavi city too. The Ghataprabha quenches the thirst of nearly 40 % of the city’s residents. Any reduction in this capacity would lead to protests in the city. That needs to be avoided by balancing the impounded water with the amount of release,” the officer said.
Hidkal dam is built around the Dhupdal weir, a 70 km-long-canal built by the British in 1897. The first phase of the irrigation project was intended to feed water to crops on around 45,000 hectares of land.
The Hidkal reservoir across the Ghataprabha river in Hidkal village and 40 km of the canal length were built in the second phase. After the third phase, the project aims to irrigate 3.3 lakh hectares of land with a total capacity of 51.16 tmcft of water. Now, after a drought of three seasons, its total storage has been reduced to 6 tmcft, including dead storage of around 2 tmcft.
Every year, 2 tcmft of water is released from Hidkal for drinking water purposes to Bagalkot. The State government has already announced this year’s release dates.