Devastation and dispute

The excess water released from the Koyna dam in Maharashtra and the dams in Karnataka inundates several villages in the northern districts of Karnataka.

FOR more than 10 days since the last week of July, the swirling waters of the Krishna and the Bhima have surged through many villages in northern Karnataka causing immense suffering to the people, damaging property, and creating new islands overnight. In the worst floods in 40 years in the State, entire villages in the districts of Belgaum, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Gulbarga and to a lesser extent Raichur have been inundated and fertile fields submerged.

With the rain not abating in the catchment area in southern Maharashtra (as on August 8), and the upper riparian State releasing large quantities of water from the Koyna dam, Karnataka's monsoon woes will probably take a long time to end. According to official figures, as on August 5, the floods claimed 110 lives, affected 1,250 villages (150 of which have been fully submerged), damaged 25 lakh houses and destroyed crop and property worth Rs.590 crores. Standing crops of sugarcane, maize, turmeric, banana and sunflower on over 100,000 hectares valued at Rs.142.39 crores, have been ravaged. Kudala Sangama, the famous pilgrim centre of the Veerashaivas at the confluence of the Krishna and the Malaprabha in Bijapur district, was in waist-deep water. Some major towns such as Athani were cut off from the district headquarters, Belgaum.

The region did not receive rainfall far in excess of the normal. So it was the sudden release of water without proper assessment of the flood situation and the accumulated backwater effect from dams, barrages and weirs, especially those in Maharashtra and to a lesser extent in Karnataka that resulted in the flooding of vast areas. Explained a former Chief Engineer from Karnataka: "Both Maharashtra and Karnataka have not only increased the size of their dams across the Krishna, the Bhima and their tributaries, but have also constructed numerous barrages and KTWs (Kolhapur Type Weirs). It is natural that any heading up of a river or stream will obstruct the flow of water. On the Maharashtra side, besides the Koyna and Ujjani dams, water is stored in innumerable and unauthorised barrages and KTWs on almost all rivers and streams. The sudden discharge from these sites raised the flood levels both in the southern Maharashtra districts of Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara, and the northern Karnataka districts of Bagalkot and Bijapur. Besides constructing the Hippargi barrage and the Almatti and Narayanpur dams, Karnataka has also built KTWs. But what saved many villages in the vicinity of the Almatti dam is that they had been classified as lying in the dam's backwaters and the people were resettled."

Irrigation experts told Frontline that both States, especially Maharashtra (by virtue of being the upper riparian), probably stored waters in their dams far in excess of the necessary storage level before the onset of the monsoon. They probably did not wait to build up storage levels slowly as the monsoon progressed fearing the level would come down if the monsoon failed. But with excess rains in the catchment areas in Maharashtra, the States were forced to release water from their dams, which had reached their full reservoir levels (FRLs) thereby aggravating the flood situation.

Even as the people are reeling under the impact of the floods, Maharashtra and Karnataka indulged in a dispute over the release of the Krishna waters. Maharashtra has accused Karnataka of not fulfilling its obligation to release adequate quantities of the Krishna waters from the Almatti dam so that the flood situation and the backwater effect in its inundated southern districts could be brought under control. It even got Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in the matter.

Karnataka has refused to release 6 lakh cusecs of water from the Almatti dam that Maharashtra has been demanding. On August 5, Karnataka released 4.20 lakh cu against an inflow of 3.57 lakh cu, reducing the water level in the dam to 516.4 metres, as against the FRL of 519.6 m.

Karnataka Chief Minster N. Dharam Singh said the release of 6 lakh cu would inundate 600 villages in Karnataka. But with Maharashtra increasing the outflow from its upstream Koyna dam (3.96 lakh cu was released on August 6) steadily, Karnataka, according to engineers at the Almatti dam site, will also have to increase gradually the outflow to 5 lakh cu. The water discharges from the Almatti dam have already affected over 60 villages in Hungund and Muddebihal taluks of Bagalkot and Bijapur districts.

According to the Water Resources Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Maharashtra was needlessly creating a controversy over the discharge of water from Almatti. His contention is that the villages in Sangli and Kolhapur could not have been affected by the backwaters of the Almatti as they are located at a height of 538 metres above sea level. After all, floods had ravaged villages in both districts in 1964 and 1976, before the dam was constructed. He also claimed that in 2002-03 and 2004, when the dam had reached full storage level, no village in Maharashtra was submerged. Irrigation experts also point out that a joint survey by engineers from both States, which was later cleared by the Central Water Commission (CWC), stated that villages upstream up to and beyond Sangli would not be flooded even when the water level at the Almatti dam reached 524.256 m.

Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that Maharashtra was making an issue in order to create an official record about the submersion of villages, before the hearings by the recently constituted Krishna waters tribunal commenced.

State Revenue Secretary S.M. Jamdar, who is in charge of flood-relief work, said: "Maharashtra is cheating us. It has been releasing huge quantities of water from the Koyna dam to save face in the wake of protests from farmers both upstream and downstream. The present water level in Almatti is 3.5 m below its FRL. Even though we are releasing 4.7 lakh cu Maharashtra's discharge is much more because it cannot store water in the Koyna dam."Bagalkot Deputy Commissioner K.S. Prabhakar said: "That Maharashtra is continuously releasing water can be gauged by the fact that at the Chikkapadasalgi bridge the level of the water went up by 3 [1 metre] feet between August 5 and 7 causing untold misery to farmers downstream in Karnataka."

While the swollen Krishna has caused distress to the people living along its banks in Bagalkot, Bijapur and Belgaum, the all-time high releases of water (4.5 lakh cu) from the Narayanpur reservoir, Karnataka's last storage structure across the Krishna, has led to flooding in parts of Gulbarga and Raichur districts, which were already facing the wrath of a swollen Bhima.

Karnataka is worried that if it releases excess water from Almatti now, building up the requisite FRL during the rest of the monsoon can become difficult if the rains stop or if Maharashtra stops outflows from Koyna. Last year Karnataka sought the Supreme Court's intervention to direct Maharashtra to release water into the Bhima. Whenever Karnataka got water in excess of its allocated share the State paid for it - approximately Rs.1 crore per thousand million cubic feet of water.

According to the Dr. A.L. Koppar, Director of the Indian Meteorological Department (Karnataka), most of the western half of the State, especially the coastal and Malnad regions, have received "vigorous" (that is, four times above normal) to `active' (between 1.5 and four times above normal) rainfall between July-end and early August. The rainfall pattern has been normal in the eastern region. The monsoon has been normal to deficient in only Tumkur, Kolar and Bangalore Rural districts.

Figures from the State's Directorate of Economics and Statistics provide a stunning picture: 16 of the State's 27 districts received excess rainfall, with 94 of the 175 taluks completely soaked during the July rainfall that varied between 200 and 732 per cent above the normal. The State's other major rivers, most notably the Cauvery, the Harangi and the Hemavathy in the south and the Ghataprabha in the north have also caused flooding.

The Cauvery, with copious rains in its catchment areas, flooded two of the six islands at the Ranganthittu bird sanctuary on the outskirts of Mysore).