Gandikota reservoir faced with heavy inflows

ANANTAPUR: In the wake of heavy flooding of River Chitravati and also other irrigation sources, the Gandikota reservoir in Kadapa was at gross storage capacity level and water was being discharged towards the connecting reservoirs on Friday.

The reservoir recorded 25.29tmc-ft water as against its full capacity of 26.85tmc-ft, followed by 14,200 cusecs of inflow from upstream parts.

Irrigation department released 2950 cusecs of outflows towards dependent sources in the area. “In addition to sources of the Galeru Nagari, Sujala Sravanthi project from foreshore water of Srisailam, the heavy rains in upstream parts of connecting AP and also Karnataka led to heavy inflows from Pennar and Chitravati rivers,” irrigation DE Uma Maheswar said.

Water level there was 24.8tmc-ft a day ago while it increased to 25.29tmc-ft on Friday.

Some 2950 cusecs were released towards Mylavaram dam in the district.

The Chitravati Balancing Reservoir in Anantapur-YSR district borders was receiving heavy inflows. The project had 9.02tmc-ft as against its full gross storage capacity of 10tmc-ft. About 2290 cusecs of outflows were being released downstream from the Chitravathi Balancing Reservoir.

Irrigation and police authorities sounded an alert in the low-lying areas in Pennar basin following the heavy floods. Talla Proddatur police said the people in surrounding parts of Pennar river were alerted over possible inundation of low-lying areas.

With heavy storage of water in the dams in YSR and Satya Sai districts, the banana orchards will benefit from the rise in groundwater sources.

Meanwhile, Srisailam dam gets constant heavy inflows from downstream projects under Krishna basin. The dam recorded inflows of 1.58 lakh cusecs as against 1.87 lakh cusecs of outflows towards Nagarjuna Sagar and other sources, including for power generation.

Srisailam recorded 214,36tmc-ft as against 215.81 tmc-ft of gross storage capacity. The Nagarjuna Sagar dam received 1.79 lakh cusecs from upstream parts followed by 1.93 lakh cusecs of outflows.

Tungabhadra reservoir had gross storage capacity for the past one month due to constant heavy floods in upstream parts of the reservoir. The dam was discharging 83,000 cusecs into the river. Similarly, Almatti reservoir released 2.25 lakh cusecs towards Krishna river.

Irrigation department expects more floods and heavy inflows to all Krishna and Pennar basin projects for a few more days and alerted low-lying areas of the river beds against possible inundation of habitations.