All gates lifted after Sriramsagar fills up in just one day

Hyderabad: A flood alert has been sounded along the course of the Godavari in north Telangana following huge inflows into the river. Officials opened the crest gates at the Sriramsagar project on Saturday evening and released 50,000 cusecs downstream into the Godavari.

The Sriramsagar project, got filled up in just 24 hours due to heavy floods reaching the dam to the tune of 4.45 lakh cusecs contributed mainly from upstream Maharastra. The dam filled up to its brim after three years.

The project capacity which was 52 TMC ft against the full capacity of 90 TMCft on Friday, got filled within 24 hours on Saturday evening and became surplus forcing authorities to open the crest gates.

There have been heavy inflows into River Godavari, downstream of Sriramsagar project for the last few days due to all the medium irrigation projects and the major project of Yellampally getting filled up.

With SRSP gates opened and likely increase of releases into the river to the order of three lakh cusecs for a couple days, revenue officials issued an alert along the river’s course in entire north Telangana region.

With SRSP also becoming  surplus, the 660 km course of the Godavari right from Kandakurhty in Nizamabad (foreshore of SRSP) up to Dhawaleswaram near Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh is in spate as every major and medium irrigation project along the course has opened its gates to release flood waters downstream. Given heavy rains in Karimnagar district along with SRSP releases in Kakatiya Canal, the Lower Manair Dam (24 TMC ft) is also likely to be filled up in the next two days.

Elsewhere in Telangana, the Manjira, one of the tributaries of the Godavari is in spate since Friday. The first major project, 30-tmc ft Singur dam in Medak got filled and officials opened flood gates to release 1.57 lakh cusecs downstream. This has led to inundation at Vana Durga Devi temple at Yedupayala and water gushing into Manjeera river to reach Nizamsagar in Nizamabad district.

The Nizamsagar project (full capacity 17 tmc ft), which was receiving inflows since Friday morning at a modest 1,000 cusecs saw that increase to 45,872 cusecs by Saturday evening. According to officials, the project will be filled up by Sunday evening. If Nizamsagar gets filled, all major, medium and minor irrigation sources in the state will be filled to the brim.

The sole exception is Nagarjunasagar, an inter-state project, which still has little water that can be put to use. As regards Krishna Basin projects, there is a steady inflow of one lakh cusecs at Jurala due to upstream inflows from both Krishna (Almatti and Narayanapur) and Bheema (Ujjain dam) for at least a week.

The Srisailam dam getting a total inflow of 1,24,720 cusecs at 5 pm on Saturday saw a rise in levels to 170 TMC against full capacity of 215 tmc ft and level to 876.50 ft against full level of 885 ft. However there are no such inflows in downstream Nagarjunasagar dam.