For the first after erection of crest gates, water is being released from K L Rao Sagar Project, popularly known as Pulichintala project, here since Monday night. The officials have lifted 10 gates out of total 24 gates. Interestingly, the gates are being operated by using generators as there is no power supply at the project site. Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao said, “We have pressed three generators into service to operate the crest gates as there is no power supply.”
The irrigation officials have released 1.04 lakh cusecs of flood waters from Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP). However, the flood waters reaching here are not being impounded. The officials have decided to release all the flood waters in view of flood waters at the NSP and Srisailam.
The Minister said that he asked the officials to speed up the rehabilitation of affected people. So far, Rs. 3 crore was spent on R&R as against total estimate of Rs. 12 crore for the R&R packages. The government was keenly monitoring the water levels and their safety would be accorded top priority, he said.
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Krishna Delta System (KDS) Chief Engineer Ramesh Babu said the government has decided to store 11 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet) water at the dam, while the total capacity is 45.7 tmcft. Water storing at the dam would be scaled up in phased manner. Till then, all additional inflow will be released into the Prakasam Barrage, he said.
About 94 percent works are stated to be completed on Pulichintala project, which is being constructed across river Krishna between NSP and Prakasam Barrage to provide water to Krishna delta.