It will take over 40 days for all the major reservoirs of the Krishna upstream of the Prakasam Barrage to fill up’, if a steady flow of 1.15 lakh cusecs of water is received at the Almatti reservoir in Karnataka. That’s a nearly impossible scenario as currently inflows into Almatti are zero cusecs.
Barring Nagarjuna Sagar, none of the other major Krishna river reservoirs, Almatti, Narayanapur, Jurala and Srisailam, have any water available for irrigation as per Irrigation Department norms.
Nagarjunasagar has 8 tmc ft and Tungabhadra has 2 tmc ft for irrigation. Water levels in all the reservoirs are way below the minimum drawdown level (MDDL).
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The State government has asked the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) for 156.76 tmc ft for the kharif cropping season in the Krishna delta and 10 tmc ft for the area’s drinking water and seedbed needs.
To fulfil that demand, it would take a steady inflow of 11,574 cusecs for an entire day to fill a tank with a capacity of 1 tmcft and 1,15,740 cusecs to fill a tank with a capacity of 10 tmc ft.
The Almatti reservoir, which can hold 130 tmc ft, currently has only 19 tmc ft. Eleven days would be required to fill the reservoir to the brim with inflows of 1.15 lakh cusecs a day.
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The reservoir will get filled in half the time if the inflows are 2.30 lakh cusecs a day.