For the first time, the Singur reservoir located in Pulkal mandal of Sangareddy district was filled to the brim in the month of July. The reservoir capacity is 29.91 tmcft.
With heavy rains in the catchment areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra, Irrigation officials were forced to lift the crest gates on Saturday. While two crest gates were lifted at about 10 a.m., another gate was lifted at about 1 p.m. by two metres. Three crest gates — 9, 10 and 11 — were opened and about 34,490 cusecs of water were released in the afternoon.
However, by Sunday noon, two crest gates were closed at 11 a.m. and about 12,000 cusecs of water, coming from upstream areas, were being released through gate 11. Since Sunday, about 3.5 tmcft water had been released, according to Deputy Executive Engineer C. Nagaraju. It was expected that the outflow may continue for another 24 hours as the inflows were coming from catchment areas, mostly Bidar and surrounding areas in neighbouring Karnataka as well as within Telangana.
Jinnaram in Sangareddy district recorded a rainfall of 202.4 mm on Saturday morning. As many as 21 mandals in the district received ‘large excess of rainfall’ with only six mandals — Nyalakal, Zaheerabad, Mogduampally, Jarasangam, Watpally and Gummdidala — registering ‘excess rainfall.’
There were not much rains in catchment area of Maharashtra thought the catchment area was spread up to Latur and Osmanabad. The Ganegam project in Maharasthra is not yet filled despite rains.
“Some of the fields resemble a tank. What can the farmers do? How can they clear the water? Are they in a position to reinvest money for seed and cover other input costs,” asked Prasad, a resident of Medak district
“Cotton crop was damaged on about 1 lakh acres in Sangareddy district alone. They could not go for the same crop again and now they have to opt for alternative crop,” G. Jayraj, district secretary of All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers wing of CPI(M), said.
