The Proposal: The proposal envisages diversion of 4,370 Mcum from the surplus water available from Mahanadi and Godavari basins.  Link proposal involves 312 km long canal off-taking from the Inchampalli reservoir and outfalling into Pulichintala reservoir including 12.50 km long tunnel crossing the ridge between Godavari and Krishna basins.   The link will provide annual irrigation to the tune of 6,13,442 ha in Andhra Pradesh comprises of proposed command of 1,09,345 ha (IRBC=72,345 ha and under NSLBC Extension 37,000 ha) utilizing 660 Mcum of water and 5,04,097 ha of existing command (NSLBC  2,19,380 ha and NSRBC 2,84,717 ha) utilizing 3005 Mcum of water.  The link will provide 176 Mcum for domestic & 237 Mcum for industrial water supply.  Transmission losses through the link canal will be 293 Mcum.  The designed discharge at offtake of the canal is 304 cumecs.  In the link canal  enroute water will be lifted by 38.66 m at crossing of NSLBC requiring about 71 MW of power.  Besides, water will be lifted from Pulichintala reservoir to Pulichintala RBC which involves a pumping of 12.63 m requiring 41 MW of power.  Thus, about 112 MW of power in total will be required in pumping the water.

Engineering Aspects:  For this purpose two dams namely Inchampalli on Godavari with FRL 112.77 m and another Pulichintala dam on river Krishna with FRL 53.30 m as proposed by Andhra Pradesh Government is considered.  The gross and live storage of these reservoirs are 10,374 Mcum, 4,285 Mcum, 1,296 Mcum and 1,026 Mcum respectively.  The total length of link canal is 312 km between Inchampalli & Pulichintala including 12.50 km tunnel portion for crossing Godavari-Krishna ridge.  The FSL at head and tail are 106.68 m and 55.44 m respectively.

Environmental Issue:  Under Inchampalli reservoir total submergence will be to the extent of 92,555 ha. of which 21,734 ha is reserved forests, for which compensatory afforestation will be provided.  About 1 lakh persons will be affected by the reservoir.

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