With no heavy rainfall occurrence in the catchment areas of Upper Krishna Basin for the last two weeks and no forecast of any sizeable inflows into the upstream reservoirs in Maharashtra and Karnataka, the prospects of two common projects of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh — Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar — by the month-end appear increasingly grim.
As on August 13 evening, the two reservoirs have a flood cushion of about 265 tmc ft and the water storage in Srisailm is receding slowly with the two States resorting to water release to canal systems and power generation, although the water let into the river after power generation would reach Nagarjunasagar.
According to the Irrigation department authorities, Srisailam attained a maximum storage of 123.72 tmc ft for this season against its capacity of 215.81 tmc ft as on August 10. However, it has started depleting with water drawal by the two States for their needs and as at 9 p.m. on August 13 it reached 117.49 tmc ft.
Although Jurala reservoir upstream of Srisailam is getting a flood of about 10,000 cusecs, water is being let out to the river only intermittently with power generation. The sources stated that Telangana started power generation at Srisailam on July 31 and Andhra Pradesh on August 7.
Similarly, Telangana has commenced drawing water to Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme from August 6 starting with 1,240 cusecs and later increasing it to 2,400 cusecs to meet the irrigation and drinking needs of the dependent areas in the combined Mahabubnagar district. On the other hand, A.P. started drawing water through the Pothireddypadu Head Regulator system on August 11 starting with 6,500 cusecs and later increasing it to 12,000 cusecs to meet the needs of different irrigation systems based on it.
“Spillway discharge of flood commenced at Srisailam on July 23 last year, on July 28 in 2021, on August 19 in 2020, on August 9 in 2019, on August 18 in 2018 and on October 12 in 2017,” a senior engineer who supervises flood at Srisailam told The Hindu explaining how the project has become surplus in the recent years.
The delay in the arrival of flood to make the two common reservoirs become surplus or even attain the full reservoir level could impact the agricultural operations in the command area based on the canal systems drawing water from the two projects in both the Telugu-speaking States.
