Srisailam dam water level crosses 200 tmc feet

Hyderabad: For the first time in three years, Srisailam dam, the inter-state project on the River Krishna, crossed the 200 tmc ft storage mark on Wednesday.

The present level at the dam was 882.40 ft against the full reservoir level of 885 tmc ft and the storage stood at 201.12 tmc ft against full capacity of 215.81 tmc ft, about 14 tmc ft shy of full storage capacity.

However, inflows into the dam decreased from 1,70,000 cusecs on Tuesday to a little above one lakh cusecs on Wednesday afternoon as expected.  

Dam authorities released 75,000 cusecs to Nagarjunasagar by operating powerhouses on both the left and right banks.

No major rains were reported in the catchment areas of both Krishna and Tungabhadra basin, indicating further reduction in inflows into the dam.

However, there was no immediate plan to open the crest gates due to reduction in inflows. Officials said that they will maintain the present outflows to Nagarjunasagar through power houses.

Meanwhile, the flood intensity at all the major irrigation dams across Godavari also came down and irrigation engineers decided to build up storage levels and only release floodwaters after estimating the reduced inflows.  

Inflows at Singur dam on Manjeera river in Medak showed a drastic reduction, from 1 lakh cusecs to 31,678 cusecs on Wednesday evening.

Officials started closing gates and were only releasing 10,000 cusecs to Manjeera barrage downstream. Inflows into Sriramsagar dropped from 3 lakh cusecs on Tuesday to 1 lakh cusecs on Wednesday.

A similar situation was visible at Yellampally dam across Godavari, downstream Sriramsagar project, where the inflows reduced from four lakh cusecs to 2.30 lakh cusecs and same quantum was being released into river.

At Lower Manair Dam near Karimnagar city, officials were maintaining storage at 23.2 tmc ft against full capacity of 24 tmc ft. Accordingly, outflows dipped from 30,000 cusecs on Tuesday to 5,000 cusecs.

“Depending on the inflows, we will build up storage at the dams, besides releasing water,” said a Sriramsagar dam official.