With poor rain in the catchment areas resulting in hardly any inflows into the Yeleru reservoir, the mainstay of water supply to the city, officials are making arrangements for lifting of water from Purushottapatnam Lift Scheme on the Left Main Canal (LMC) of the Polavaram Project on the Godavari.
With the flood flow into the Godavari not adequate till a few days ago and the needs of the Godavari ayacut to be met, lifting has not been taken up so far. It has reached around 27,000 cusecs and is expected to further increase in the next few days.
Lifting into the LMC at Purushottapatnam is expected to be taken up once the flow reaches 40,000 to 50,000 cusecs and second stage lifting into the Yeleru reservoir, 52 km away, sources said.
In the absence of inflows into the reservoir and the demand for irrigation picking up lifting had become necessary.
Water from the reservoir, lifted during the last flood season, continues to be a major contributor to the supply by the GVMC. From the Yeleru reservoir around 48 MGD is being supplied and other major sources are Raiwada and Tatipudi reservoirs with 15 MGD each. With rainfall in June turning out to be poor and July equally disappointing so far, authorities have decided to resort to lifting of water from the Godavari. Requests have been made to the Irrigation Department and Polavaram Left Main Canal officials to take up the lifting once the water flow further increases, it was learnt. It is planned to pump 1,400 cusecs of water from the river at Purushottapatnam. While 700 cusecs will be lifted into Yeleru reservoir at the second stage, the remaining flows on through the Left Main Canal and into the Yeleru canal for irrigation.
Water flows by gravity from the reservoir 156 km away through Yeleru canal to Kanithi Balancing Reservoir.
