Hyderabad: Coming as a big relief to the Nagarjunasagar dam officials, the continuous heavy inflows to the Srisailam dam may force the dam authorities to open the flood gates to release the surplus waters downstream the Krishna river on Sunday.
Heavy rains in the region between Narayanapur dam and Srisailam, as also in the Tungabhadra dam region, have resulted in heavy inflows amounting to 2.15 lakh cusecs into Srisailam dam since Friday. The level on Saturday evening touched 882 ft against the full tank level of 885 ft.
With only 17 TMC ft flood cushion currently at the dam, the authorities may be forced to operate the flood gates on Sunday. Barring the Nagarjunasagar dam, all the dams upstream like Srisailam, Jurala, Tungabhadra, Narayanapur and Almatti are receiving moderate to heavy inflows. There is still flood cushion of about 105 TMC ft at the Nagarjunasagar dam, and if the current trend in inflows continues, in the next 15 days, the dam will touch its full capacity.
Currently, authorities at Srisailam are releasing 80,000 cusecs through power houses and the Pothireddypadu head regulator.
“The trend is steady as of now, we may have to operate flood gates on Sunday and keep the Srisailam dam level at 885 ft,” chief engineer M. Krishna Rao told this correspondent.
Due to heavy rains, the demand for irrigation water under the Prakasam barrage and Nagarjunasagar has also reduced.
Supply on alternate days by December
Many areas, including Quthubullapur, Suraram and Chintal, which are receiving water once in 3-4 days, would start getting supply every alternate day once Krishna phase III is commissioned by December 2014, said officials.
