Hyderabad: The Srisailam dam will receive the first inflows from upstream in the first week of September. Chief Engineer of the dam, C Narayana Reddy, told this newspaper on Wednesday that due to considerable rains in the Mahabaleshwar area (in Maharashtra), the Almatti dam in Karnataka has started receiving fresh inflows of around 30,000 cusecs, which is likely to go up to 50,000 cusecs tomorrow.
“Since the Almatti is already full, the dam authorities will have to release the surplus to Narayanapur dam, from where the Krishna flows down to Jurala in Telangana state, and from there to Srisailam. We expect that by September 2 or 3, Srisailam will receive the first inflows from upstream,” Mr Reddy said. Srisailam did not get inflows in June, July and August and only meagre inflows from the local catchment areas.
There is more good news for both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states, as the Ujjain dam in Maharashtra, built across the Bheema river, filled up on Tuesday night and 40,000 cusecs of surplus water was released from the crest gates.
The Ujjain dam is located 450 km upstream of the Jurala project where the Bheema river, one of the tributaries of the Krishna, joins the main river a few kilometres upstream of Jurala.
“There are no reservoirs between Ujjain and Jurala. Bheema waters will directly reach Jurala, but it will take a minimum of four days for the flows to reach,” said Jurala Chief Engineer T. Khagender. He said that at present, Jurala is getting around 9000 cusecs of flood generated water due to rains in its catchment area, and once water from Narayanapur and Ujjain reaches Jurala, the dam gates will have to be lifted to release the entire surplus to the Srisailam dam.
Central Water Commission officials say rain in Mahabaleshwar will continue for another week, resulting in inflows of anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 cusecs into the Almatti Dam.
