Gosikhurd dam pumps water for irrigation.
The Gosikhurd dam from many times has been the core of the irrigation scam. It has been
usually used saviour in many times of crisis. When most of the type dams from Vidarbha’s get dry and are not in the position to serve water to the specific area or for irrigation, Gosikhurd Dam has always been a helping hand. Now from last four days, Gosikhurd Dam has been releasing water for irrigation farmlands with a plan to continue further. This year Vidarbha The irrigation development corporation has planned to irrigate 70,000 hectares with Gosikhurd Dam. Due to the higher capacity of dam and large catchment area, all these plans successfully possible. But now even Goikhurd dam is itself left with just 2% water above the dead storage level. Every second 35 million cusecs are released from the dam. The water that has been released from the dam is coming is more from the inflow from the Waingangā river. But now the inflow has decreased due to poor rainfall in the area. But still, VIDC is in the hope to maintain the flow of water in the coming days. It is expected to rain in the next three to four days. There may also be a situation where dam gates will be opened to avoid flooding just because Gosikhurd has a large catchment area. The catchment area is large extending from Madhya Pradesh so it can save or bring the water from any part into the dam. This also increases the possibility of flooding even after one or two bouts of heavy rain. Now Gosikhurd Dam has left with only 15 million cubic meters of water in live storage.
This can maximally last for around one week. But there is enough water in storage too. This is the last level below the dam’s gate. Including dead storage the total storage is at 421 MCM. Due to the reason since there is no storage for drinking water it is possible to release water from Gosikhurd Dam. There has been a reservation of water in Bhandara Only. If in case there is substantial for drinking water then are strict instruction that irrigation has to be stooped totally when total water level reaches below 33% this is the case with Totladoh dam which provides water to the city. Here the level has touched to dead water storage area leading to the crisis of drinking water. According to the research 17 dams spread across Nagpur and Amravati division had a level below 33%. There has been no irrigation in Buldhana district.
