The Krishna River continues to be empty even after a month of monsoon; the Godavari is as usual in spate at its mouth, but with the absence of rains in the catchment will the floods last?
The river is full at Dowleswaram, Ryali, Maddur and Vijjeswaram, the four barrages on the four branches at the mouth.
The cumulative discharge at these four barrages, the last stop before the water joins the Bay of Bengal, is 1,81,547 cusecs. The barrage at Dowleswaram recorded a discharge of 71,913 cusecs, Ryali 45,670 cusecs, Maddur 23,898 cusecs and Vijjweswaram 40,066 cusecs on Monday. The prospects of farmers who depend on these two major rivers seem to be bleak this year.
The irrigation experts too are having doubts on how long the flood in the lower reaches of Godavari River will last as the inflows into the projects in the upper reaches seem to be quite poor. An inflow of 13,045 cusecs, the highest into the various dams in the river basin, was recorded at the Jaikwad project, followed by 11,433 cusecs at Kaddam project.
Sri Ram Sagar and Sripada Yellampally Project recorded inflows of 3,041 cusecs and 4,224 cusecs respectively. While more than 94 tmcft are required to fill the Sri Ram Sagar Project, 85 tmcft are required to fill the Jaikwad project in the Godavari basin. It would take over two months for one of these reservoirs to get filled with the current inflows.
The situation of the projects in the Krishna basin appears far more dismal. While just 19,955 cusecs are trickling into Almatti, 94 tmcft are required to fill the massive dam that has a gross storage capacity of 130 tmcft.
The inflows into the Tungabhadra Project, a tributary of the Krishna River, are also a dreary 15,159 cusecs. Over 72 tmcft are needed to fill the project having a gross storage capacity of 100 tmcft.
While there are no inflows into Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, Ujjaini project is recording an inflow of 14,300 cusecs. As many as 192 tmcft and 190 tmcft are required to fill the Srisailam and the Nagarjuna Sagar projects respectively.
