Hyderabad: With Mahabaleshwar, the origin of the Krishna River, receiving nearly 80 cm of rain in the last four days, Almatti officials in Karnataka on Thursday released nearly two lakh cusecs of water from the crest gates as well as through Power House release downstream.
Similarly, Narayanpur Dam officials were alerted and released almost the same quantum into the river. Jurala Dam authorities of Telangana meanwhile, lifted 24 crest gates in advance and released one lakh cusecs by Thursday evening.
It is expected that the same flood pattern will continue for a week and the waters will reach the Srisailam inter-state dam in a couple of days. This is considered as a major flood for the current season and the Srisailam Dam has the capacity to impound the entire flood reaching into it.
Srisailam Dam, which has 50 TMC ft as of now, still has a flood cushion of about 170 TMC ft left. It is expected that around two lakh cusecs of water per day for a week will reach the dam, around 100 TMC ft (at the rate of 11,550 cubic feet of water per second {cusec} for a day would yield 1 TMC ft capacity).
Even if there are major floods in the coming days, Srisailam, the downstream Nagarjuna Sagar Dam (flood cushion is about 190 TMC ft) and Pulichintala (flood cushion of 43 TMC ft) can easily impound it without the water being wasted into the sea through the Prakasam barrage.
Not only these dams, once more water reaches Srisailam, it can be diverted to the Pothireddypadu head regulator to serve Rayalaseema projects.
According to AP irrigation minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao, whenever the Srisailam level touches 840 ft against the full reservoir level 885 ft, the AP government will release waters to the Handri-Neeva project through the Malyala lift situated in the foreshore of the Srisailam dam.
Andhra Pradesh engineer-in-chief M. Venkateswara Rao said, “We will utilise the flood for the Handri-Neeva lift as well as for Pothireddypadu head regulator to utilise for irrigation purpose.”
This is also good news for devotees attending the Krishna Pushkaralu, that will commence on August 12, as they will be able to take sacred dips at all the ghats en route comfortably due to rise of the water level.
Meanwhile, the entire 800 km length of the Godavari, from the Sriram Sagar project up to the Dhawleswaram barrage near Rajahmundry is brimming with water. For the first time after construction of the Yellampally Dam (20 TMC ft capacity) near Mancheriyal town, Irrigation authorities have opened the crest gates and are releasing nearly 45,000 cusecs of floodwater.
There are no other significant reservoirs that can impound waters along the course of the river and all the water is being wasted into the sea.
During the current water year that commenced on June 1, till date a little more than 1,000 TMC ft of water has been let into the sea from Dhawleswaram barrage.
But in-flows into Sriram Sagar project has reduced to 13,000 cusecs and the same is being diverted to canals under the dam. Singur Dam across Manjeera is also getting good in-flows in the range of 13,000 cusecs per day, increasing its capacity to 6 TMC ft against a full capacity of 30 TMC ft.
Water levels in Godavari rising
With heavy rains across the catchment areas of Godavari for the past few days, the water levels along the river and its tributaries continued to rise steeply in the Agency areas of Bhadrachalam and Palvancha divisions in the district.
For example, the water level in Godavari touched 34 feet at the temple town of Bhadrachalam on Thursday. A total of twelve gates of Taliperu project have been opened and 21,500 cusecs of water releasing into Godavari. All rivulets and streams in Charla mandal are full thanks to incessant rains in Chhattisgarh.
Even the road connecting a total of 10 villages was cut off due to water overflowing from the streams. The Kinnerasani river is in spate as well and 25000 cusecs of water was released by opening five gates. Road connectivity was cut between Yanambailu and Rajanagaram due to the water release.
