The State government on Friday informed the Legislative Assembly that there is no shortage of water in the reservoirs for drinking purposes and inflow has been increased in reservoirs of both Cauvery and Krishna basins following monsoon rains in July.
In a reply to the debate on drought, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said that there was no fear of shortage of drinking water now, but it was difficult to say when the water would be released into canals for irrigation purposes, he said.
Reservoir levels
As on July 20, the inflow of water into four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin has been recorded at 18,687 cusecs while inflow into reservoirs in the Krishna basin has recorded at 76,264 cusecs, and 32,146 cusecs at the Almatti dam. Similarly, the inflow of water had increased in Sharavathi, Ghataprabha and Malaprabha reservoirs, he said.
Noting that there was sufficient inflow of water into dams for ensuring water supply in multi-village scheme water pipes, Mr. Gowda said under the contingency plan, funds would be given to each district to recharge borewells or drill new borewells. Already ₹1 crore had been released to each district, additional funds would be released soon to mitigate drinking water shortage, he said.
Under the existing drought declaration manual prepared by the centre in 2016, he said taluks would be declared drought if they did not receive rains for the continuous three weeks and a deficit of 60% of rains. Moreover, taluks would be declared drought only after the first week of August, based on the rainfall in June and July and after October 31, based on the rainfall during the south-west monsoon period.
Faulty guidelines
There was a huge difference between the ground situation and drought manual guidelines. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would write to the Centre seeking flexibility in the guidelines to allow the State government to declare drought, he said.
The weather experts have indicated that the monsoon would become active for the next few days, till August 3. It was also indicated that the State would overcome the deficit rainfall in June by active monsoon in the coming days, Mr Gowda said.
A sub-committee of the Cabinet would meet in the second week of August to decide on the declaration of drought-hit taluks, he said.
