The two Telugu-speaking States are getting ready to place their demands before the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) for release of water for drinking and irrigation needs as the water level in Srisailam reservoir, which holds key for several irrigation systems and drinking water schemes, continues to swell at good pace for the last three days.
Water level in Srisailam was approaching 92 TMC ft at 8 p.m. on Monday as sustained inflows ranging between 1.5 lakh cusecs to 2 lakh cusecs continued throughout the day with over three-fourths of it reaching from Jurala (Krishna river) and the remaining quantity from Tungabhadra river. As the rains are continuing in the catchment areas of Krishna and its tributaries in Maharashtra and Karnataka, the Irrigation Department officials are expecting that the inflows would continue for few more days.
The water storage of Srisailam is expected to reach about 120 TMC ft even if a flood of about one lakh cusecs continues for the next four days and the storage would definitely swell to 150 TMC ft if there's any increase in the quantity of flood, the officials explained.
“Compared to the position of water in Srisailam on September 1, it stands much better now as over 70 TMC ft flood has reached it, taking the storage to useful level. Drawl of water for Handri Neeva lift irrigation scheme by Andhra Pradesh and for Kalwakurthy by Telangana is going on for the last four days and they have indented for 20 TMC ft and 17.5 TMC ft water, respectively, to KRMB,” senior irrigation officials said.
The flood monitoring officials at Jurala stated that about 46,500 cusecs of outflows from Narayanapur into the Krishna river course through spillway and power house and another 22,000 cusecs from the spillway and power house of Ujjani in Maharashtra was continuing on Monday evening.
In Godavari Basin, inflows into major reservoirs in Telangana Sriramsagar, Singur, Kaddam and Yellmapally receded on Monday due to lack good inflows from the upper reaches of Godavari and its tributaries. However, water that has been let into sea from Dowleswaram in AP stood over 770 TMC ft as on Monday with most of it contributed from Godavari below Sriramsagar, where it gets huge supplementation from Pranahitha, Indravathi and a few other tributaries.
