All dams will be full by October, says CWC

Hyderabad: The first phase of the current monsoon season, which is about to conclude, has made farmers in the Krishna basin cheerful, while most of the Godavari basin projects are not even half full. The Central Water Commission (CWC) expects the second and third spells of rain to fill all projects by October. 

The current inflows of one lakh cusecs to the Srisailam dam may continue for three-four days, said Mr D. Ranga Reddy, chief engineer at Krishna and Godavari Basin Organisation (KGBO), CWC.

“Based on current inflows into the Srisailam project, we expect the dam would get another 40 tmc ft in four days. We are receiving about 50,000 cusecs from the Tungabhadra project and this is expected to continue for 10 days. The Bhadra project is also full and any further rain will get us more flood water inflows,” Mr Reddy told this newspaper.

He said the Almatti dam in Karnataka was full and inflows into the Jurala project, the first in Telangana state on the Krishna, were continuing. “Even if there are no rains, we will get 60,000 cusecs of inflows in Krishna. In total, Srisailam may get one lakh cusecs of inflows for the next four days. This may add 40 tmc ft,” Mr Reddy said.

For the first time in five years, TSGenco was able to generate hydel power at Srisailam project in July after the dam received over 120 tmc ft in the water year beginning June, taking the total volume to 148.5 tmc ft as against its total capacity of 215.81 tmc. Srisailam had only 19.5 tmc ft on the same day last year. TSGenco on Saturday started 250MW hydel power generation at Srisailam project. 

“We started hydel power generation of 250MW from 8 am today. Generally, hydel power generation at Srisailam takes place during August or September, but this time we could start power generation in July after five years. The southwest monsoon was good and we received a good quantity of water and this coupled with heavy downpour in the upstream catchment areas in Karnataka and Mahara-shtra resulted in more then expected flood water into the Srisailm dam,” said Mr Ch Venkatachalam, director (hydel), TSGenco. 

Hydel power generation at Nagarjunasagar is continuing for one hour using reversible pumping. Its installed capacity is 816 MW and 900 MW at Srisailam. “Since January, we are generating 300 MW hydel power using 1 tmc ft of water," said Mr Venkatachalam.