Water seems to be “trickling” down the Krishna with the different reservoirs still having space to be filled up.
According to the Reservoir Status Information System of the Irrigation Department on Thursday, Almatti, the first major reservoir on the river, is 93 per cent full with 95 tmcft available for irrigation. For all practical purposes, water seems to be trickling into the reservoir, which has the capacity to store 130 tmcft. While an inflow of 19,792 cusecs was recorded on Thursday, the discharge was even lower at 12,171 cusecs.
The inflows into Almatti are crucial for the farmers of Krishna delta, because sufficient amount of water is released to reservoirs downstream only after it gets filled. The water levels in all reservoirs downstream – Narayanpur, Jurala, Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar – usually come up to the brim only if the discharge from Almatti is in lakhs of cusecs. Last year saw a ‘one in 1,000 years' flood in the Krishna, resulting in heavy damage to Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Guntur, Krishna and Nalagonda districts. A record discharge of 10 lakh cusecs was there at Prakasam Barrage during the flood.
This year the reservoirs are still empty to various extents. While reservoirs at Narayanapur and Jurala are 80 per cent full, the larger Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar are 78 per cent and 65 per cent full. While Nagarjuna Sagar project is receiving highest inflow of 68,585 cusecs, inflows at Prakasam barrage are just 14,636 cusecs.
