The Andhra Pradesh Government’s plan to lift water from the foreshore of the Srisailam reservoir on the Krishna river seems to have run into problems with a drastic fall in the inflows into the Almatti Dam.
Heavy rains in the upper reaches of the river resulted in heavy inflows to Almatti crossing the 2 lakh cusecs mark last week. The Almatti reservoir authorities raised the crest gates of the dam to release water as the level increased and the flood cushion reduced to single digit (6 tmcft a week ago and just 3.34 tmcft on Friday).
Not much from Tungabhadra
At the peak of the flood this season, a maximum of one lakh cusecs was released from Almatti for a few days, but then the flood receded and releases came down.
The water released from Almatti was sufficient to fill the smaller dams – Narayanapur and Jurala – downstream but very little, a few thousand cusecs, trickled into the Srisailam reservoir.
Not much water came down to Srisailam from Tungabhadra, a tributary of Krishna, too.
An average inflow of 444 cusecs was recorded in Srisailam dam on Friday.
The dam, which has a gross storage capacity of 215.81 tmcft had just 23.75 tmcft with a flood cushion of 192.06 tmcft.
Nagarjuna Sagar position
The water position in the other major dam on the Krishna, the Nagarjuna Sagar, was also dismal. Measly inflows of 400 cusecs were recorded.
Nagarjuna Sagar, which has a gross storage capacity of 312.05 tmcft, had only 121.22 tmcft with a flood cushion of 190.83 tmcft.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu told Irrigation Department officials on the day he performed harathi to the Godavari waters from Pattiseema that efforts should be made to lift water from Srisailam using Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (HNSS), but the Krishna river water should also be released in accordance with the requirements of the Krishna delta.
But that is in likely to happen in the changed scenario.
Thanks to the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme, Prakasam Barrage received an inflow of 3,896 cusecs.
The authorities released the entire amount into the canals without filling the reservoir upstream the barrage. The barrage, which has a gross capacity of 3.071 tmcft, had only 1.55 tmcft.
