With an increased flood from the upstream, the spillway discharge of flood resumed first at Srisailam and later at Nagarjunsagar on Wednesday.
According to the flood monitoring officials, one spillway gate was lifted for 10 ft height to release the flood at Srisailam once the project attained full reservoir level of 885 ft and capacity of 215.81 tmc ft around 1 a.m. on Wednesday. Spillway was closed completely around 10 p.m. on August 24.
By 9 p.m. seven more gates were also lifted for 10 ft height each to discharge over 2.23 lakh cusecs water as the inflows from Krishna (Jurala) and Tungabhadra (Sunkesula) were around 2.96 lakh cusecs. Another 31,000 cusecs of water was also being let into the river after generation of power in the Right Bank Hydro Electric Station of Andhra Pradesh.
In the downstream, discharge of flood from the Nagarajunsagar spillway was resumed around 8 p.m. by lifting eight gates for five ft height each and later increased to 10 ft height each to increase the discharge from 64,300 cusecs to 1.2 lakh cusecs. At 9 p.m., the inflows into the project were over 2.74 lakh cusecs. Another 28,000 cusecs was also being released to the river after power generation.
At Jurala in the upstream of Srisailam, the spillway discharge was increased to over 1.8 lakh cusecs from the 26 crest gates as the inflows increased to over 2.07 lakh cusecs following the increase in the discharge of flood at Narayanpur. Another 29,000 cusecs was being let into river after power generation.
“With almost all major projects in the upper, middle and lower Krishna basins full, any receipt of flood would be let downstream at Almatti, Narayanpur, Tungabhadra and Jurala. Water level in Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar and Pulichintala projects is also being maintained around the full reservoir level,” a flood forecasting official stated.
In the Godavari basin, it is only Sriramsagar reservoir that is yet to attain the full reservoir level this season. Last year too, the project became surplus only in the third week of September. However, the flood at Medigadda barrage was around 2.12 lakh cusecs and at Polavaram in Andhra Pradesh it was 4.94 lakh cusecs.
