Irrigation projects in Karnataka have not tackled floods or droughts

BENGALURU: The drought debate before the monsoon in Karnataka and the deluge that followed in August have brought the focus back on the state’s irrigation projects, which have gobbled up thousands of crores of rupees but neither prevented floods nor mitigated drought.
In four years between 2016-17 and 2019-20, state budgets allocated more than Rs 52,000 crore for irrigation and floodcontrol projects, according to PRS Legislative Research.Of this, in the 2019-20 budget, Rs 9,767 crore was allocated for medium irrigation projects and Rs120 crore for development of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP) Stage III.

While experts point out that mismanagement of assets in the Krishna basin is the major reason for August floods, statistics accessed by TOI show that the water resources department has now spent Rs 51,149 crore on UPKStage III, almost three times more than the initial 2012 estimate of Rs 17,206 crore.
A significant amount of this has been released and spent, but the work carried out has not helped parts of North Karnataka in the Krishna basin, the worst-affected region in this year’s floods. Instead, experts say, half-completed canal projects and shortsightedness combined to intensify the impact of floods over lakhs of hectares.
Karnataka, the secondmost arid state in India, faced 12 drought years over the past 18 years, and three major floods — not counting relatively low-intensity events such as the 2018 Kodagu floods — in 2005, 2009 and 2019. While the government and its planners may get a long rope when one speaks of floods, given that Karnataka’s irrigation planning unlike states like Assam is focused on drought not floods, no lenience can be given for the failure to mitigate droughts.
Experts attribute this August’s floods to unprecedented rain (in the Cauvery basin) and mismanagement of assets (in the Krishna basin). While rain did play a part even in North Karnataka, experts believe the extent and effect of floods could have been controlled if there was better planning and execution of projects.
Mismanagement of assets
Mismanagement with regard to Almatti Dam was the main reason for the devastation, water and dam expert Capt Rajarao said. “Instead of focusing on enhancing storage capacity, the government spent money on canal networks,” he said.
As part of the Krishna river water dispute, the Brijesh Kumar tribunal had in 2009 allowed Karnataka to store up to 173tmcft of water in Almatti, which is 519.6m tall. In 2013, the tribunal’s final order allowed Karnataka to increase the reservoir’s height to 524.2m, allowing it to store an additional 130tmcft or handle 15 lakh cusecs of inflow.
However, this hasn’t been done even today. MB Patil, water resources minister between 2013 and 2018, said: “The Centre is yet to notify the tribunal’s award in its gazette, without which we cannot go ahead.”
A major reason for floods in North Karnataka earlier this month was additional release of water by Maharashtra. “Almatti Dam is designed for a flood intensity of 10.9 lakh cusecs of water. But the operational level was only 6.5 lakh cusecs and the normal inflow was only 3.5 lakh cusecs. However, this season, the inflow touched 4.5 lakh cusecs and resulted in floods,” said Venkat Ram, former adviser to the chief minister on irrigation in the HD Kumaraswamy government.
Raising Almatti height
Experts said this may not have been the case had the government increased the dam’s height. They added that unprecedented rain also contributed to floods.
“Increasing the height would have had multiple advantages. It could have allowed the state to safely handle up to 15 lakh cusecs, while storing an additional 130tmcft. This water could also have irrigated an additional 5.4 lakh hectares,” Rajarao said.
Basava Sagar Dam (Narayanpura Dam) on River Krishna normally handles around 6 lakh cusecs of water. There was flooding after the reservoir recorded more than 9.5 lakh cusecs of water this monsoon.
“There should be a river authority to operate all reservoirs in the basin,” Rajarao said. “I blame the Centre for its failure to notify the tribunal’s award and for not forming a monitoring authority so there could have been an integrated approach to storage and discharge,” he added.
Rule curve violations
In the absence of an authority, Rajarao said, each state acts on its own terms. “In this case, for example, Maharashtra acted on its own and suddenly discharged too much water, affecting Karnataka,” said Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People.
He said both Karnataka and Maharashtra violated rule curves for water conservation and operations during floods — according to which reservoirs are expected to keep between 40% to 50% of storage space ahead of the monsoon for rainwater — and had stored too much water in reservoirs. This, experts argued, was because water is a state subject, allowing each state to act on its own. They said a monitoring authority is needed for operation of all reservoirs in any river basin to avert such situations.
Most of the Rs52,000-plus crore spent on irrigation and flood control has gone to the UKP and other projects in the north, given that the Malnad and Cauvery basin regions, which were also battered by the floods this time, have little scope for new projects.
Both Venkat Ram and Patil pointed out that the only projects being carried out in the Cauvery basin are Operation and Maintenance works. Experts said the August floods were caused mainly because of unprecedented rain rather than mismanagement of assets unlike in 2018, when floods were triggered due to poor overhaul and maintenance work on canals led to their clogging from natural causes and by encroachments. This led to inundation of farmlands while lakes and tanks remained starved for water.
While most officials TOI spoke with reiterated that the major focus of Karnataka’s irrigation projects is drought and not floods, experts blamed consecutive governments for failing to even mitigate recurring droughts.
Even though the state government has spent crores of rupees on irrigation over the years, Karnataka has seen a dip in irrigated agricultural land, from 42.8 lakh hectares in 2010-11 to 37.4 lakh hectares at the end of 2015-16.