HYDERABAD
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Heavy rains continued to lash several parts of Telangana for the third consecutive day on Sunday, disrupting normal life even as several streams, rivulets and rivers were in spate. Heavy inflows into the Sriramsagar project prompted the authorities to take up flood discharge by lifting nine spillway gates around 7 p.m.
The State government has announced closure of all educational institutions till university level from July 11 to 13, with forecast of heavier rains under the influence of cyclonic and south-west monsoon impact for the next three to four days. In the wake of heavy downpour, administrations of all districts have suspended Prajavani, the grievance redressal day on Mondays, so that the authorities can immerse themselves completely in relief work, wherever the need arises.
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Incessant rains have also forced the authorities to postpone the ‘Kakatiya Vaibhava Saptaham’ celebrations. They have been instructed to stay put in their headquarters so that they could attend to any emergency in the wake of heavy rains. The highest of 181 mm rain was recorded at Kollur in Mancherial district from 8.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday while 12 other places received 100 mm to 148 mm during the same time period.
According to information reaching here, road link between Jagtial and Dharamapuri was cut off following flood water overflowing the bridge at Anantaram. Those travelling from Jagtial to Hyderabad have been advised to take the route via Karimnagar as flood water was overflowing on the Sircilla bypass road at Shatrajupalli.
With heavy rains not only in the States but also in the upstream areas of Krishna and Godavari basins in Maharashtra and Karnataka, all the projects in the Godavari basin in Telangana and the Krishna basin projects in Maharashtra and Karnataka are getting heavy inflows, owing to heavy to very heavy rains in Mahabaleshwar and adjoining areas, the origin places and major catchment areas of Krishna and many of its major tributaries.
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The Krishna Basin projects in Telangana-Andhra Pradesh are also expected to start getting inflows over the next few days as the storage of Almatti and Tungabhadra projects is fast inching towards surplus stage. On Sunday evening, the storage of Tungabhadra was around 85 tmcft against its capacity of 100.86 tmcft with inflow of over 91,200 cusecs. On the other hand, the storage of Almatti was over 81 tmcft against its capacity of 129.72 tmcft with inflow of 75,100 cusecs.
Sriramsagar gates lifted
Meanwhile, the authorities of Sriramsagar project lifted nine crest gates around 7 p.m. on Sunday to discharge a flood of 25,000 cusecs from the spillway although the inflow went down to 2.12 lakh cusecs at 8 p.m. and the storage was at 72.91 tmcft against its capacity of 90.31 tmcft. “Last year, the gates of Sriramsagar were lifted on July 22, on September 14 in 2020 and on September 21 in 2019”, an irrigation engineer told The Hindu.
Similarly, Singur was getting a flood of 5,400 cusecs and Nizamsagar 4,700 cusecs. Kaddam was getting 90,000 cusecs and Yellampally 3.41 lakh cusecs. The authorities have kept Medigadda Barrage in free flow condition from 6 p.m. on Sunday and the flood discharge there was expected to cross 10 lakh cusecs at night.