Tungabhadra Board Authorities Lift 26 Crest Gates

Anantapur:Sudden rise of floods in the upstream Tungabhadra River has led to the TB Board authorities lifting 26 crest gates, thereby releasing 98,299 cusecs of water downstream on Saturday evening.

Of this, 84,266 cusecs have been released into the river towards Vijayanagar and Raichur districts of Karnataka and Mantralayam in Kurnool district towards Srisailam reservoir.

TB dam has already reached its permitted full storage capacity of 78 TMC fee. As a result, authorities are releasing inflows into the river along with the dependent canals of HLMC, LLC and others.

Though inflows had been about 27,000 cusecs for the past one week, there had been a sudden rise of floods in upstream parts of Western Ghats. This led to inflows increasing to 69,000 cusecs on Saturday evening. This led to TB dam authorities opening the 26 gates in two phases and discharging water into the river.

This is because the major canals HLMC and LLC have limited capacity of flow due to the poor condition of the canals and bridges. "We have no option but to release additional inflows into the river by lifting the crest gates," a senior official of the TB Dam told Deccan Chronicle.

TB Board superintendent engineer Narayana Naik said the additional water is being released into the river because though the actual capacity of Tungabhadra Dam is 105 TMC feet, its storage capacity is being limited to 78 TMC feet this year owing to some limitations.

Due to the sudden rise in outflows into the Tungabhadra River, water levels have risen at Hampi, the historic site of Vijayanagar Empire in Karnataka and at Mantralayam, the pilgrim centre located in AP near its border with Karnataka.

M. Danunjayachar, priest of the Hanuman Temple in Hampi, observed that within hours, water levels had risen at the Chakratheertha, denying access toward the temple on Saturday afternoon.