Karnataka dams full, Telangana gears up

Hyderabad: Water in Almatti and Narayanpur dams in neighbouring Karnataka has almost reached full reservoir levels due to incessant rains upstream. Krishna waters from these dams is expected to be released downstream to the Jurala project in Mahbubnagar soon.

Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao on Sunday directed officials to complete all pending distributary and channel works of the Jurala project on a war-footing to fill the reservoirs in Mahbubnagar district to store 26 tmc to meet irrigation and drinking water needs.

While water from Almatti Dam, which touched 1701 ft against an FRL of 1,705 ft on Sunday, is already being released downstream to Narayanpur Dam, it is yet to be released to the Jurala project as the Narayanpur Dam is yet to be filled. The level of the Narayanpur Dam touched 1,604 ft on Sunday against an FRL of 1,615 ft. Mr Harish Rao said, “It may take three-four days to release water from Narayanpur Dam to Jurala.

“In the meantime, we will complete all pending distributary and channel works to fill four reservoirs, namely Kalwakur-thy, Nettempad, Bheema and Koilsagar.” He, however, said these inflows would not be enough to reach Srisailam and Nagarjuna-sagar dams.

Krishna water has to reach Jurala first, which has a capacity of 11 tmc, after which the water would be released to Srisailam dam, which has a 300 tmc capacity, followed by Nagarjuna Sagar with a capacity of 300 tmc.