Hyderabad: With officials of the Central Water Commission not making any forecast of heavy rains in the catchment areas of the river Krishna in Maharashtra and Karnataka states, TS and AP continue to wait for Krishna waters.
August has long been considered as Krishna flood season and major dams in these states record heavy inflows.
“We should receive at least 300 tmc ft in August in Srisailam dam but it appears that is not happening, Almatti and Narayanpur Dams in Karnataka have reached full capacity, but they are balancing the present inflows by diverting the water to ayacut areas and releasing very little downstream. There is no relief in sight. I have already spoken to Almatti officials,” said Srisailam chief engineer A. Narayana Reddy.
As on Wednesday, Srisailam dam level stood at 777.9 ft with 19.59 tmc ft capacity whereas on the same date last year, the level was 824.6 ft and capacity was 44.48 tmc ft.
According to the Srisailam dam chief engineer, it’s now roughly estimated that 150 tmc ft of water may be realised in August, of which about 40 tmc ft will be utilised by Karnataka for its dams by balancing the inflows.
The remaining will reach Srisailam and it would be shared among the two states as per the Krishna River Management Board orders. “We are facing a precarious situation this year; we should have got 75 tmc ft in July, but that did not happen,” Mr Narayana Reddy said.
Meanwhile, Jurala project chief engineer Khagender said that for the first time in the current flood season, the project received 4,500 cusecs on Wednesday morning (on Tuesday, the inflow was 500 cusecs) due to the 18,031 cusecs released from Narayanapur dam in Karnataka. Of this, 12,000 cusecs will be let out for the canals in the ayacut.
“We don’t know how long the inflows will continue as we hear that there are no heavy rains in the catchment area and inflows into Almatti dam are ebbing,” he said. Mr Khagender said that hopeful of good inflows in the season, Jurala officials started lifting storage water to Jurala, Nettempadu, Bheema and Koilasagar ayacut but they might have to stop pumping the water if there are no further inflows.
