India’s third-longest river starts above Mahabaleshwar
The Krishna—also Krishnaveni—runs about 1,400 kilometres across the Deccan, ranking third in length after the Ganga and Godavari and fourth by inflow and basin area. It rises near 1,300 metres in the Western Ghats before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
From Mahabaleshwar it flows through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. Thirteen major tributaries feed it; the Tungabhadra stretches 531 kilometres with a 71,417-square-kilometre catchment, while the Bhima is the longest tributary. Near Sangli the Panchganga, Warana, and Yerla join at sites Hindus treat as holy, and Kudalasangama marks the Krishna–Malaprabha confluence beside Basavanna’s Aikya Mantapa. Legend holds that the deity Dattatreya lived for a time at Audumber on its banks, and Kudalasangama lies about 15 kilometres from the Almatti Dam in Bagalkote district.
The basin covers about 258,948 square kilometres—nearly eight percent of India’s land and the country’s fifth-largest catchment—with Karnataka holding 113,271 square kilometres, Andhra Pradesh 76,252, and Maharashtra 69,425. Assessed average annual surface water is 78.1 cubic kilometres, of which 58.0 is counted utilizable; culturable land inside the basin approaches 203,000 square kilometres, over a tenth of India’s farmable area. Counting precipitation minus natural evaporation, average yearly availability is put at 86.32 billion cubic metres. Sharing it has long been contentious: the Bachawat tribunal award of 31 May 1976 still governs allocations, because Andhra Pradesh took the later Brijesh Kumar award of 29 November 2013 to the Supreme Court. Via the Telugu Ganga canals, the river even supplies Chennai in Tamil Nadu, a state it never enters.
Beneath the basin lie oil and gas, coal, iron, limestone, gold, uranium and diamonds. At the mouth, the last surviving mangroves form the Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary, a refuge for resident and migrant birds, fishing cats, otters and estuarine crocodiles.
Jain texts such as the Kalpasutra cast the Krishnavena country as Abhiradesa, tying the river to Abhira memory long before modern dams. Hindus hold the river sacred and believe bathing in it washes away sin, and every twelve years pilgrims gather at its banks for the Krishna Pushkaram fair.
Source: Krishna River
