Water release to Sriramsagar ayacut to commence today
The prospects of gateway projects of Telugu States in the Krishna Basin, Jurala and Srisailam, getting a sizeable flood to improve their low storage appear grim till the mid-first week of August, even if the ongoing flood to immediate major reservoirs in the upstream – Almatti, Narayanpur, Tungabhadra and Ujjani in Karnataka and Maharashtra – sustains.
Flood cushion of Almatti and Narayanpur dams in Karnataka came down to about 71 tmc ft as at 8 pm on Tuesday as they were getting a sustained flood of 1.16 lakh cusecs and 13,700 cusecs, respectively. Their storage swelled to 75.9/129.7 tmc ft and 20.56/37.64 tmc ft with the help of inflows over the last 10 days. Similarly, Tungabhadra dam was getting a flood of 83,400 cusecs with storage reaching 34/105.8 tmc ft.
Ujjani dam across Bhima river in Maharashtra was getting a flood of 11,000 cusecs with its storage reaching 51.7/117.2 tmc ft. However, the ongoing heavy rains in the catchment areas in Maharashtra and Karnataka and forecast of more such rains was expected to bring more flood to the reservoirs improving the prospects of projects in Telugu States getting inflows.
After the shutdown of power generation at Jurala in the afternoon on Monday as inflows receded to 9,000 cusecs, it was taken up again on Tuesday evening by switching on one unit around 7 pm as the inflows continued at 10,000 cusecs. The storage of Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala continues to be low at 37/215.8 tmc ft, 142/312 tmc ft and 19.5/45.8 tmc ft, respectively.
Water to ayacut
In the Godavari Basin, flood to Sriramsagar improved to 39,400 cusecs at 7 pm from 9,900 cusecs at 1 pm on Tuesday and the storage improved to 64.5/90.3 tmc ft at 8.30 pm.
Meanwhile, the project authorities decided to commence release of water to Kakatiya Canal for kharif crops from Wednesday. Minister for Roads & Buildings V. Prashanth Reddy is scheduled to release water formally.
Inflows to Singur were continuing at 4,800 cusecs with storage at 21.6/29.9 tmc ft and to Nizamsagar at 6,400 cusecs with storage reaching 12.1/17.8 tmc ft. Other projects and barrages such as Kaddam, Yellampally, Sundilla, Annaram, Medigadda, and Thupakulagudem are discharging flood. Many of the medium irrigation projects in the basin have also become surplus already.
