Tamil Nadu on Friday reduced the intake of water from the Mullaperiyar dam as the inflow continued to be at a low level owing to poor rainfall in the catchment areas.
An official of the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department told The Hindu that the inflow was only 89 cft and it was decided to reduce the water discharge from 100 cft to 75 cft. The catchment area on Friday recorded a rainfall of only 1.2 mm, and the southwest monsoon was yet to pick up in the upstream area of the dam.
The decision to reduce the water discharge was taken after the water inflow reached less than the discharge level. Tamil Nadu has been reducing the water intake slowly from 250 cft to the lowest level to maintain it above the dead storage level of 108 ft. The water level on Friday was 110.7 ft.
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Water level
The Idukki dam has a storage level of only 10.69% even as the power generation at the Moolamattom power house has been reduced considerably. An official of the Dam Research and Monitoring Station, Vazhathoppe, said that the water level on Friday was 2,300 ft compared to the 2,314 ft the same day last year. The power generation has been reduced for over a week with the expectation of a rise in inflow with the arrival of the monsoon. There has been no impact of monsoon on the reservoir level and it has continued to drop even at the generation level below 3.5 mu for nearly a week, he said.
The high ranges have been deficient in the rainfall and the storage levels in various reservoirs have remained below the normal reservoir levels of the season. Power generation at projects, including Pallivasal, has been suspended after the water level dropped.
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