In good news to the farmers under major irrigation projects in the Krishna and Godavari basins in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States, the Central Water Commission (CWC) on Tuesday issued an advisory on the forecast of flood in the two river basins.
The CWC officials said in the advisory that heavy to very heavy rainfall with isolated extremely heavy rainfall had been forecast for the next two days in the catchment areas of river Godavari and Krishna in Maharashtra. Water levels in Godavari and Krishna and their tributaries were rising rapidly in Nasi, Ahmednagar, Pune, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra.
The water level in Krishna river and its upstream tributaries such as Panchganga and Dudhganga was rising rapidly due to over 38.9 cm rainfall recorded till 1 pm on Tuesday at Mahabaleshwar in the Western Ghats in Satara district of Maharashtra, the origination of river Krishna and another 8 cm rainfall was forecast for the rest of the day.
In view of such exceptionally heavy rainfall, the level of water in Krishna was likely to rise rapidly all along itse course in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh up to Srisailam reservoir as almost all upstream reservoirs were full and most of them were likely to release water as and when they get heavy inflows, the CWC officials stated.
The CWC advised the disaster management authorities of all the four States to maintain strict vigil at all reservoirs, particularly which were already brimming with water or approaching the full reservoir level such as Almatti and Narayanpur reservoirs, both in Vijayapura district of Karnataka and Jurala project in Mahabubnagar district of Telangana.
The central water agency has forecast good inflows into Srisailam reservoir in the next four to seven days and asked all the project authorities to maintain vigil and take necessary action for release of excess flow of water during the current vigorous spell of monsoon.
Water level in Godavari in Nasik, Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of Maharashtra was likely rise rapidly and good inflows were expected into Jayakwadi reservoir in Aurangabad district over the next two-three days.
In Telangana, most of the major projects were getting good inflows in the two basins with good rainfall over the past few days in the local catchment areas. Water to the parts of ayacut under Sriramsagar, Yellampally, Kaddam, Jurala and others and the lift irrigation projects based on the flows in sources of the reservoirs is already being released.
