Major reservoirs both in the Krishna and Godavari basins in Telangana are yet to get a heavy flood even after 41 days into this south-west monsoon season as the forecast of rise in the flood to Almatti and Tungabhadra projects in Karnataka brings some hopes to farmers depending on water in Jurala, Srisailam and Nagarajunasagar dams.
The irony in the Godavari Basin, however, is that over 3.3 lakh cusecs of flood is flowing down towards sea at Kaleshwaram, the confluence point of Pranahita with Godavari, the area from where water is planned to be drawn for the ongoing Kaleshwaram project, when projects such as Sriramsagar, Mid Manair, Lower Manair, Yellampally, Singur and Nizamsagar are yet to get any major flood. Over 23 tmc ft of water has gone down into the sea between July 8 and 11 at Dowlaiswaram in Andhra Pradesh, out of a total of 35 tmc ft surplus from the point so far this season from June 1.
According to the Central Water Commission (CWC) officials, the flood to Alamatti is expected to go beyond 74,100 cusecs while that to Tungabhadra beyond 49,400 cusecs till Thursday morning. Average inflows into the two reservoirs were recorded at 53,000 cusecs and 45,700 cusecs, respectively on Wednesday. All the major reservoirs, including the two, in the Krishna Basin in Karnataka, have already received over 140 tmc ft so far this season, while Jurala, Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar have only about 6.5 tmc ft inflows till date.
Almatti and Narayanpur projects need another 85 tmc ft water to let the flood downstream towards Jurala and Srisailam while Tunagabhadra needs another 50 tmc ft water to release flood into the river course.
“Last year, water release from Narayanpur commenced only around September 15 although release of flood into the river course from Jurala after power generation commenced from August 31 with the help of rain in the catchment areas below Narayanpur,” flood monitoring officials at Jurala said. In the Godavari Basin, Sriramsagar received only about 6 tmc ft flood so far even after opening the gates of Babli barrage across Godavari in Maharashtra on July 1. Yellampally and Singur projects have also received small amount of flood. , 5 tmc ft and 1.5 tmc ft, respectively with the help of rains in the catchment areas within the State. Kaddam with over 7 tmc ft storage capacity is the only reservoir that has received surplus water so far allowing the flood to be released downstream.
