As they say, when nature gives, it gives in abundance. Same thing appears to be happening with the two major common reservoirs of Telugu-speaking States Telangana and Andhra Pradesh – Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar, even though the bountiful flood to them has come delayed.
Water level in Nagarjunasagar project has improved significantly over the last two weeks as it has reached to 541 feet at 8 p.m. on Saturday as against the full reservoir level of 590 feet. The water storage too in the reservoir has increased proportionately to 190 TMC ft against its capacity of 312 TMC ft.
The present water level was unimaginable till August 31 when the reservoir had storage of only 115.3 TMC ft with the level at 500 feet.
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Good inflows
However, significant inflows into Srisailam, mostly from Jurala, have brightened the chances of Nagarjunasagar getting supplementation from the former.
With added flood from Tungabhadra from the third week of September and from Handri from the first week of October - has changed the scenario to impound Srisailam in quick time.
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Although about 75,000 cusecs of water discharge from Srisailam into the river course was ensured intermittently after power generation, it was increased to 1.31 lakh cusecs with the lifting of two crest gates of Srisailam on October 12.
The quantity of discharge from the spillway was increased frequently starting with lifting of the third gate on October 13 evening and by 2 p.m. on October 14, the spillway discharge reached to 1.94 lakh cusecs with seven gates lifted, in all, for 10 feet each.
According to the flood monitoring officials, the total discharge from Srisailam was being maintained constantly at about 2.67 lakh cusecs, including from power houses and spillway, since the lifting of seventh gate.
“If the same quantity of flood is continued, it would add at least 20 TMC ft water in the matter of 24 hours,” the officials explained expressing hope that the flood would continue in that measure as inflows into Srisailam from Jurala was continuing at 1.61 lakh cusecs and another 36,000 cusecs from Tungabhadra at 9 p.m. on Saturday. Meanwhile, water levels in Nizamsagar and Sriramsagar were improving steadily in the Godavari Basin too with sizeable inflows from the upstream of Godavari and its tributaries.
Water storage in Sriramsagar was recorded at about 49 TMC ft against its capacity of 90 TMC ft at 9 p.m. with inflows of over 39,000 cusecs. Storage in Nizamsagar improved to over 6.2 TMC ft with inflows of about 19,000 cusecs from Singur.