Discharge of flood from the spillway of Nagarjunasagar, which was the only project in the Krishna and Godavari Basins in Telangana yet to release surplus flood from the crest gates this season, commenced early on Thursday with the project authorities performing pooja and switching on motors to lift 10 gates for 5 feet height each around 5.30 a.m.
Initially, the flood discharge from the spillway was about 77,750 cusecs when the reservoir storage reached 304.9 tmcft (586.9 ft) against its capacity of 312 tmcft (590 ft full reservoir level). It was gradually increased to about 1.46 lakh cusecs by lifting the gates for another 5 ft height each (total of 10 ft each) around 9 am and to over 2.33 lakh cusecs by lifting another 6 gates around 11 a.m.
By noon, 20 gates were lifted for 10 ft height each to increase the spillway discharge to over 2.92 lakh cusecs, and around 2 p.m. six more gates were also lifted for 10 ft height each to take the total gates lifted to 26 increasing the discharge to 3.8 lakh cusecs. At 9 p.m., inflow into the project was being recorded at over 4.24 lakh cusecs and the same quantum as total discharge including with power generation and release to canals, by maintaining the storage at 304 tmcft.
