Early flood into the Jurala project this monsoon season has not only improved the water storage in it to near full reservoir (FRL) level but has also allowed Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Ltd (TS-Genco) to commence power generation and allowed irrigation authorities to start water release/lifting to several systems based on the reservoir.
With the arrival of about 4.5 tmcft of flood water into Jurala till Wednesday evening, the authorities have switched on pumps of the Bhima-I and II, Koilsagar and Nettempadu lift schemes also to the right, left and parallel canals of the project. On the other hand, Genco authorities switched on one of the 6x39 megawatt power houses of the Jurala Hydro Electric Station on Wednesday afternoon.
“Good rainfall in the local catchment areas of Krishna and Bheema rivers between Narayanpur dam in Karnataka and Jurala project (in Jogulamba-Gadwal district) for more than a week has brought in sizeable quantity of water into the reservoir. But for release of water to various lifts and canal systems and discharge of water into the river course after power generation, the reservoir would have become surplus on Wednesday itself,” an engineer monitoring flood at the reservoir said.
The water storage in Jurala was 4.46 tmcft against its capacity of 9.66 tmcft on June 1 as the inflows were less than 600 cusecs. However, they picked up from June 3 and increased steadily till June 8 night and went beyond 27,000 cusecs by early Wednesday. The flood that started receding steadily through the day reached 18,800 cusecs by evening.
As the water storage in the reservoir crossed the 9-tmcft mark in the afternoon on Wednesday, Genco authorities switched on one unit to discharge about 5,200 cusecs into the river course after power generation. Besides, water lifting through Nettempadu, Koilsagar and Bheema schemes and release into three canal systems has also been taken up.
“Power generation at Jurala was possible only from July 14 last year as the inflows did not pick up till release of water from Narayanpur dam. However, good rainfall in the catchment areas between Narayanpur and Jurala has brought early flood and enabled us to take up generation more than month earlier,” Genco authorities said.
