hyderabad
Engineers of the Water Resources department of Maharashtra downed the shutters of Babli Barrage across the river Godavari, located near upstream of Sriramsagar Project in Telangana, on Sunday morning in the presence of engineers from the Central Water Commission and those of Telangana, after keeping the gates open for 120 days from July 1.
All 14 gates of the barrage are lifted/opened every year on July 1 following a Supreme Court judgment of 2013 to ensure sufficient inflows of river waters downstream and are closed on October 29. They would be opened again on March 1 morning and closed in the evening for the purpose of meeting drinking water needs downstream.
The Maharashtra authorities downed the barrage shutters in the presence of executive engineer E. Venkateshwarlu and junior engineer Satish of the CWC and EE M. Chakrapani and Assistant EE M. Vamshi of Sriramsagar. Executive Engineer (Nanded) from Maharashtra C.R. Bansod supervised the closure of the barrage gates by the Water Resources department staff.
According to the engineers of Sriramsagar, the project has received about 200 tmcft water so far this water year since June 1 and it includes 2.5 tmc ft diverted from the Kaleshwaram project pumped into Sriramsagar during the lean flow days at the beginning of this water year. Similarly, about 136 tmcft water was released from the project to the river course to meet irrigation and drinking needs.
As on Sunday morning, the project has a storage of 84.81 tmcft against its capacity of 90.31 tmcft and the level was 1,090 feet against full reservoir level of 1,091 feet. Release of water to Kakatiya, Laxmi and Saraswati canals as also lifting for Guthpa and Alisagar lift schemes based on Sriramsagar water was also in progress, besides releases of Mission Bhagiratha.
