Polavaram left canal to push Godavari water north from 2 September

Godavari water is scheduled to be channelled through the Polavaram Left Canal from 2 September 2026 to meet drinking and industrial needs in North Coastal Andhra, according to a report published on 31 August 2026. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is to perform Jala Harathi at Sitarampuram in Payakaraopeta mandal of Anakapalli district. The announcement is yesterday’s filing for today’s paper; the ceremony itself is listed for 2 September.

Irrigation officials were careful with a distinction the public often collapses. This is not the completion of the main Polavaram dam or headworks, which remain under construction. The plan uses existing pumps and completed stretches of the left canal to capture seasonal flows that would otherwise run to the sea. In other words, it is an interim utilisation of works already available, not a ribbon-cutting for the full multipurpose project.

Storage and distribution targets for the Visakhapatnam region are quantified in the same brief. Officials spoke of moving up to 27 TMC: about 5 TMC to the Kanithi Balancing Reservoir inside the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant premises, and the remaining 22 TMC to Penjeruvu, Krishnampalem, Kondakarla Ava, Gopalapatnam Ava and other tanks. A pipeline from Kanithi to Narava is targeted for March 2027 to move surplus water toward Meghadrigedda reservoir for the urban grid.

For Visakhapatnam’s industrial belt and for towns that live with summer scarcity, 27 TMC of captured seasonal water is a material claim even if the main dam is unfinished. Steel-plant balancing storage, peri-urban tanks and a later pipeline into Meghadrigedda form a staged logic: hold what can be held now, move surplus later. The political theatre of Jala Harathi will travel with that engineering caveat only if reporters keep repeating it; otherwise a left-canal release will be misread as Polavaram finished.

This cutting therefore repeats the officials’ warning in plain language. Polavaram the dam is still being built. Polavaram the left-canal pathway can already move monsoon and seasonal Godavari water into North Coastal systems from 2 September if the pumps and completed reaches perform as described. Naidu’s presence at Sitarampuram marks the political ownership of that interim release.

No cost sheet for the left-canal operation was included in the tip beyond the operational TMC split and the March 2027 pipeline target. No claim is made here about acres of ayacut under the full Polavaram command. The public facts for 31 August are the date of release, the place of Jala Harathi, the 27 TMC distribution plan, and the explicit non-completion of the main dam.