Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar today told the Legislative Assembly that the manufacturing of crest gates for Tungabhadra dam was going on.
“The Tungabhadra Dam Board has issued the tender of making 33 crest gates to an Ahmedabad-based company. Work on six crest gates is going on right now at Gadag and Hosapete and the fabrication work is already complete. We have instructed the engineers to speed up the process. We have also informed them to delegate some of the works to others for quicker completion,” he told the Legislative Assembly.
No water for second crop
“We can only store 80 TMC of water this year due to safety reasons. In view of this, we will not be able to release water for the second crop. Crest gate installation won’t be possible if we give water for second crop. Our farmers are worried about their crops and I spoke to dam officials about it. They asked if the dam safety was more important or the second crop,” he said.
“As per the recommendations of Kannaiah Naidu, we can store only 76% or 80 TMC of water in the dam. Hence the Dam Board has taken a decision to abide by that recommendation. We are ready to protect the dam with our own money, even if others don’t pay for it. We will save our farmers and their farmers too,” he added.
We are ready to cover the repair costs
“Karnataka has to bear 66% of the repair costs while Andhra Pradesh and Telangana 33%. But Andhra Pradesh has not even ear-marked funds for it. We had told the officials that we will foot Andhra Pradesh’s bill as well in the interest of the time, but they are not willing to accept it. We don’t want any inconvenience to farmers and hence we volunteered to pay the money,” he said.
“Tried speaking to Andhra Pradesh CM about Navile balance reservoir three times but could not. I don’t know why Andhra CM hasn’t come forward to talk to us. Due to silting, the capacity of the dam is reduced to 105 TMC. Hence we have decided to build a balance reservoir at a cost of Rs 11,000 crores. We submitted the proposal to the TB Dam Board but we haven’t received any response. We have also written to the CMs of the other two riparian states,” he said.
