Anantapur: Ten crest gates of Srisailam reservoir were lifted and 4.02 lakh cusecs of floodwater discharged towards Nagarjuna Sagar following heavy inflows from Krishna basin including the Tungabhadra river on Tuesday.
The Srisailam dam’s level was at 883ft as the dam registered 94.69 per cent capacity at 204.35tmc-ft during the day, against its gross capacity of 215.81tmc-ft.
About 3.70 lakh cusecs of inflows was recorded from the upstream projects of Krishna river as also the Tungabhadra dam while the outflows were at 4.02 lakh cusecs into the river and for power generation, officials said.
Visitor rush continued at Srisailam to have a pleasant view of the reservoir with its 10 gates opened at 12ft height and white sheets of water flowing down in steady streams.
Almatti, the upstream reservoir across Krishna river in Karnataka, was discharging 2.06 lakh cusecs, which was flowing downstream via Jakwadi, Jurala and Narayanapur reservoirs under the Krishna basin.
This was the first time in the past ten years that the Srisailam dam got filled early in the season by the first week of August. Normally, the TB dam authorities open all gates on August 15 as part of Independence day celebrations. This time, all the gates were opened by end July.
The water level was maintained at 100tmc-ft and 55,000 cusecs were released into the river towards AP.
In view of the breaches in the Handri Neeva Sujala Shravanthi main canal in between Malyal towards Jeedipalli in Anantapur district, irrigation minister Rama Naidu directed the engineers to act fast.
He asked them to ensure that water is pumped through the lift irrigation system to reach to the tail end of Rayalaseema region.
As the backwater of Srisailam through the HNSS project has been main source of drinking and irrigation purposes of Rayalaseema region mainly Anantapur, Kurnool and Chittoor districts, the minister asked the HNSS wing, at a review meet, to be aware rgw pumping of maximum water towards the region.
HNSS engineers were planning to store additional water at the Penna Ahobilam Balancing reservoir along with the reservoirs of the HNSS project till Chittoor district.
