Works relating to installation of crest-gates on the dams of Pulichintala, Yellampalli and Nagarjunasagar Tail-pond projects, whose construction has been completed, has reached its final stage.
This is considered to be crucial and penultimate stage before the completion of the entire project.
The present status is such that plans have been drawn up to impound 45 tmcft (thousand million cubic ft) of water as originally designed, in the reservoir of Pulichintala from June-end using the floods in the Krishna river, if any, by that time.
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Twenty out of the 24 crest-gates of the project have been installed on the solid structure so far and work is at brisk pace to erect the remaining four by mid-June.
Any sizeable quantity of water in Pulichintala will help in meeting the requirement of the Krishna delta, advancing kharif reason for this massive ayacut, and save that much of water in Nagarjunasagar, Srisailam and Jurala dams for being used for other projects like Srisailam Left Bank Canal, Kalwakurthy, Bhima, Nettempadu, Koilsagar, all in Telangana, and Hundri-Neeva etc in Rayalaseema.
In case of Nagarjunasagar Tail-pond dam, built cross the Krishna some 22 km downstream of Nagarjunasagar to put the reversible turbines of the giant powerhouse of Nagarjunasagar to use, eight out of the 20 crest-gates have been erected till now. The erection of the remaining 12 gates, however, will be completed only by December.
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The delay in works is anticipated because of the possible floods in the Krishna, says B. V. L. Kumar, SE, AP Genco which is implementing the project.
Yellampalli status
Similarly, 30 out of the 62 crest-gates of Yellampalli dam, constructed across the Godavari in Karimnagar district as a multi-purpose project to serve as the balancing reservoir of the mega project of Pranahita-Chevella and the Hyderabad drinking water supply scheme, have been installed till now. Scores of engineers and workers are working round-the-clock to install the rest of the 32 gates by June 30 so that 20 tmcft of water can be impounded in its reservoirs as originally planned.
B. Hari Ram, project’s chief engineer, said the full capacity storage would be possible only on evacuation of some areas marked for submersion. Water was already being supplied from Yellampalli to NTPC’s 2,600-MW super thermal station at Ramagundam that is supporting all southern States.