With the Somasila reservoir getting filled up fast, the State government has decided to release the Krishna water to Chennai from September 25.
“The Krishna water release from Kandaleru will start from coming Wednesday,” Telugu Ganga Project Superintending Engineer K. Harinarayana Reddy told The Hindu .
The rate of discharge will be maintained at 2,000 cusecs per day for about one month.
The storage in Kandaleru reservoir went up to 10.48 tmcft following steady discharge from Somasila reservoir.
With addition of about 1 tmcft each day, the storage is expected to go up to over 40 tmcft in about a month.
Meanwhile, the storage in Somasila went up to 65.99 tmcft as the inflow into the reservoir across the Pennar increased to 92,343 cusecs on Sunday.
The Kundu river, a tributary of Penna river, carried heavy floods in the wake of rains in the catchment areas. As a result, the storage at Somasila reservoir went up to 65.99 tmcft from 62.12 tmcft on Sunday. The reservoir, which had a flood cushion of 12.01 tmcft, is expected to see an addition of more than 7 tmcft of water per day during the next week.
The discharge from Somasila reservoir to Kandaleru reservoir, part of the Telugu Ganga Project designed to provide drinking water to Chennai, was stepped up to 11,000 cusecs on Sunday. Another 9,000 cusecs of water was released to other irrigation projects, including Kanigiri reservoir in Nellore district, Nellore Circle Irrigation Superintending Engineer B.S.V. Prasada Rao told The Hindu .
The present heavy floods in the Kundu river are likely to continue in the next 48 hours as weathermen predicted more rains in the Rayalaseema districts as also Nellore.
Meanwhile, the inflow into Srisaialam reservoir fell to 75,018 cusecs with floods receding in the catchment areas in the upper riparian States of Karnataka and Maharashtra, according to a report compiled by the Water Resources Department said.
