Inflows into Srisailam reservoir swelled to 4 lakh cusecs following moderate floods in the upper reaches of the Krishna and its tributary Tungabhadra, resulting in steady releases from Almatti and Tungabhada dams respectively.
Consequently, the storage in the reservoir touched 854-ft mark on Friday, 31 ft short of its full capacity. AP Genco is likely to enhance power generation at the hydel complex of Srisailam from Saturday when the water level is expected to go up further. Any continuance of the inflows at this rate for a few more days is sure to fill the reservoir up to the full level.
The reservoirs of several projects based on the Krishna and the Godavari were full on Friday. The list includes Jurala, Tungabhadra, Sunkesula, Sriramsagar and Nizamsagar. As Sriramsagar continued to get heavy inflows even after the reservoir was full, its crest-gates were opened to let out surplus waters towards Bhadrachalam. This, however, will not cause floods in Bhadrachalam area as the outflow from this project is small quantity.
Water availability was such that releases were made from Sriramsagar into its Flood Flow canal by Major Irrigation Minister P. Sudarshan Reddy to build up the storage in Lower Manair dam and support the ayacut even up Suryapet in Nalgonda district. He said there was possibility of release of water into right and left bank canals of Nagarjunasagar around August 1. He contended the prospects for khariff crops were bright this year.
The Godavari river began to fall in all its stretch in the State, including at Dowleswaram where the quantity water released by lifting the shutters, also dwindled to 17 lakh cusecs.
Rains abate
Meanwhile, with the low pressure system which turned well-marked, moving away from the State and lying over Gangetic West Bengal, heavy rains abated in the State. Sompet and Huzurnagar recorded 2 cm each and Srisailam one cm.
