Rains in Maharashtra Deceptive, TG Reservoirs to See Only Trickles

Hyderabad:Any hopes of the widespread rain in parts of Maharashtra, and Karnataka, will continue and translate into flows that might add some water to Telangana’s reservoirs on Godavari and Krishna do not appear bright with weather forecasts pointing to a weakening of rainfall activity starting in the next couple of days with the dry phase expected to last almost two weeks.

At present, all reservoirs in the state, including those on Krishna and Godavari, have a total of 338.49 tmc ft of water, against their actual capacity to hold 1,059.3 tmc ft of water.

Though the Ujjain dam, that forms a major reservoir on Krishna in Maharashtra, was expected to receive a little over 1.45 lakh cusecs of water on Tuesday, and 1.78 cusecs in the coming week, the inflow was expected to fall by July 13 to between 12,000 and 30,000 cusecs.

The downstream Almatti dam, from where water once releaed comes to Telangana, is expected to receive a maximum flood of around 95,000 cusecs, reducing to around 27,000 cusecs. Though some water is expected to come to Almatti in the next few days, it currently has only 21.18 tmc ft of water, with a flood cushion of 108.54 tmc ft of water.

The outlook for the next week for Jurala, the first point for Krishna in Telangana, and then Srisailam, the first major reservoir in Andhra Pradesh, is poor with a maximum projectec inflow of 800 cusecs at Jurala and a trickle of 100 cusecs at Srisailam.

In the case of Godavari, though the flows are expected to be as high as 1,29,000 cusecs with Godavari’s tributary Pranahita in a state of near flood currently, with the flows expected to go down to around 60,000 cusecs by July 13.

It is once again Pranahita that is powering the flows in the Godavari after its confluence with the main river. The first point it crosses — the Medigadda barrage over the use of which a fresh battle is brewing between the BRS and the Congress – is expected to see the largest water flows for this coming week, topping off at 1.43 lakh cusecs that is expected to taper down to around 60,000 cusecs by the end of this week.

Since no water can be stored at present at Medigadda, all the water is flowing through towards Bhadrachalam by the point.

But where water can be stored on the Godavari —the SRSP, Yellampalli, and Kaddam dams on Godavari —the inflows are expected to touch a maximum of just about 1,000 cusecs with a lower limit of just around 100 cusecs of water during the week ending July 13.

Weak inflows in the week ahead

Godavari:

Maximum flow at Medigadda: Up to 1.43 lakh cusecs, but water cannot be stored

SRSP, Yellampalli, Kaddam, Upper, Middle and Lower Manair dams, among others, to get a max of 1,100 cusecs

Krishna

Karnataka

Almatti dam: 22,000, to up to 1,2 lakh cusecs

Narayanpur reservoir: Up to 200 cusecs

Tungabhadra dam: 5,000 to 25,000 cusecs

Telangana

Jurala: Maximum of 800 cusecs

Srisailam: 100 to 1,000 cusecs