With the possibility of discharge of flood from Ujjani dam in Maharashtra constructed across Bhima river, a major tributary of Krishna, in a day or two following continuing heavy rains in the catchment areas, the water storage in Srisailam dam is in for a rapid increase coupled with flows from Almatti on the rise.
The Central Water Commission (CWC) has forecast that Almatti would get about 24.4 tmc ft volume of water in 24-hour period till 8 a.m. on Tuesday with the flood continuing into it at the rate of over 2,82,500 cusecs. Inflows into Narayanpur dam were recorded at 3 lakh cusecs and the discharge of flood into the river course was about 2.91 lakh cusecs at 1 p.m. on Monday.
It is stated that water storage in Ujjani dam in Solapur district of Maharashtra has also crossed 100 tmc ft on Monday afternoon against its capacity of 117.24 tmc ft and the CWC has forecast that it would get about 12.2 tmc ft volume of water during the 24-hour period till 8 a.m. on Tuesday with inflows of over 1.41 lakh cusecs. “Once released at Ujjani, the flood has to travel for about 450 km in Maharahstra, Karnataka and Telangana to reach Jurala in 2-3 days,” engineers monitoring the flood at Jurala stated. Similarly, the inflows into Jarala were clocking 2.62 lakh cusecs at 6 p.m. on Monday with the discharge of flood of 2,57,500 cusecs into the river course, including over 2.31 lakh cusecs through 26 gates of the spillway and another 27,200 from power generation. Drawal of water by all irrigation systems depending on Jurala reservoir is also continuing. Water storage in Srisailam crossed 120 tmc ft mark against its capacity of 215.81 tmc ft around 9 p.m. on Monday and over 42,000 cusecs of water was being discharged into the river course towards Nagarjunasagar after power generation in the Left Bank power house of Telangana State Power Generation Corporation (TS-Genco). Besides, over 3,000 cusecs of water was also being drawn from the reservoir for Kalwakurthy (Telangana) and Handri-Neeva (Andhra Pradesh) lift irrigation schemes.
Flood into Jurala and Srisailam is likely to continue further with extremely heavy rain recorded in the catchment areas of Krishna and Bhima rivers in Maharashtra on Sunday. Quoting the CWC reports, Irrigation Department officials stated that the rainfall was about 512 mm in the Krishna basin and 399 mm in Bhima basin on Sunday. In the Godavari basin, about 36,000 cusecs of flood was being discharged from Yellampally barrage at 7 p.m. on Monday through 10 gates and the inflows were over 51,000 cusecs. The flood was passing through Sundilla, Annaram and Medigadda barrages downstream into the river course.
