HYDERABAD
Discharge of flood from the spillway of Sriramsagar Project (SRSP) was taken up on Monday (September 2, 2024) morning with the flood monitoring engineers deciding let out the flood by lifting eight crest gates, to begin with, at 10 a.m. The flood water was let out as the inflow to the project increased to nearly 2 lakh cusecs and the storage reached 72.3 tmc ft against it full capacity of 80.5 tmc ft.
Just before noon, the engineers increased the discharge to 1 lakh cusecs from 26 spillway gates. At around 12.30 p.m., it was further increased to 1.5 lakh cusecs from 40 out of 42 gates. At 1 p.m., the flow was about 1.96 lakh cusecs with release of water to Kakatiya, Saraswati and Flood Flow Canals. Another 5,000 cusecs was let into the river course from the escape channel after power generation (4x9 megawatt units).
Dates of flood discharge in the previous years
Project engineers explained that discharge of flood from the spillway was earlier taken up on July 27, 2024. In 2022, it was taken up on July 10 and in 2021 it was on July 22. In 2020 the spillway discharge of flood was late, when it was possible only on September 14 and a year before (2019) it was on September 2021.
Considerable flood to Singur and Nizamsagar too
Irrigation Department engineers stated that Singur and Nizamsagar project, which are yet to become surplus this season, too are getting considerable flood from the upstream areas in Karnataka and Maharashtra. At noon, Singur received nearly 21,000 cusecs of inflow with the storage reaching 18.64/29.92 tmc ft and Nizamsagar received 57,600 cusecs inflow with storage remaining low at 8.19/17.8 tmc ft.
Flood discharge from Yellampally and Kaddam projects
At Yellampally and Kaddam projects, in the Godavari Basin, 6.61 lakh cusecs was discharged from 62 gates and 79,000 cusecs from 18 gates, respectively. Similarly, the discharge of flood from Medigadda Barrage was 3.52 lakh cusecs; it was 3.22 lakh cusecs at Sammakkasagar (Thupakulagudem); 3.47 lakh cusecs at Sitammasagar (Dummugudem) and 3.09 lakh cusecs at Bhadrachalam.
In the Krishna Basin, the discharge of flood was 3.26 lakh cusecs from 45 gates at Jurala with flood reaching it from Bhima and Krishna rivers; at Srisailam it was 4.74 lakh cusecs from 10 gates, another 68,000 cusecs with power generation and at Nagarjunasagar, it was 5.04 lakh cusecs from 26 gates with another 28,000 cusecs after power generation.
Another view of discharge of flood from Sriramsagar Project. | Photo Credit: By Arrangement
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