Srisailam Dam is full again and the water level on Tuesday morning was 884.8 feet at the dam gates against Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 885 feet, which resulted in a little spillover at the gates owing to the ‘wave effect’ normally seen in such reservoirs. Such spillover was taken seriously by a few onlookers and rumours started floating on social media that engineers had not properly attended to the regulation of water flow.
When The Hindu contacted Dam Superintending Engineer M. Srinivasulu Reddy, he said there was nothing to be worried about and it was a natural phenomenon. The inflow too is normal at 3.5 lakh cusecs, while the dam was designed for 13 lakh cusecs and it had withstood the 25 lakh cusecs inflow in September 2009. Hence, there was no reason to panic.
“We were releasing 2.5 lakh cusecs from the spillway in the morning, but increased it to 3.5 lakh cusecs by lifting six gates to 23 feet height to bring the water level down to 884.5 feet or 884 feet so that even with the wave effect, water does not spill over the gates, though there was no danger in it,” said Mr. Reddy.
It was the government’s opinion/directive to store as much as possible during floods. During the last spell, the inflows had stopped at 881 feet level and increased only after the recent inflows because of rain due to retreating monsoon.
Currently, 50,000 cusecs of water were being released from the left and right main canals also. At Nagarjunasagar Dam also, against the FRL of 590.6 feet, it was brimming at 590 feet and water was being let out into the sea as there were inflows from the Jurala also.
