Hyderabad: Inflows into irrigation projects have come down drastically due to the lack of rain for more than a week. Inflows into the Sriramsagar project came to a halt with Maharashtra closing the gates on the Babli dam. The Jurala project on the Krishna and Singur and Musi are receiving meagre inflows. In the first week of June, Sriramsagar, Jurala and Kadem projects had received good inflows with rains in upstream states.
The Indian Metrological Department (IMD) has issued a bulletin stating that the rainfall is likely to decrease in the coming weeks due to weak monsoon currents. IMD-Hyderabad director Y.K Reddy said rainfall activity for the two weeks from June 15 to 28 is expected to be subdued (decreased and less than normal) in Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh states.
The southwest monsoon covered Telangana state in a day on June. Northern parts of the state and districts like Adilabad and Nizamabad received good rainfall for two-three days. There has been a dry spell for the past one week. On Monday, Jurala received inflows of 332 cusecs, which is nearly half of 689 cusecs received on Sunday. While Sriramsagar and Kadem witnessed zero inflows, Singur received 250 cusecs.
Though Tungabhadra project in the Krishna basin has been receiving good inflows due to rain in Karnataka, the water level currently stands at 1,602 feet against full reservoir level of 1,633 feet. The storage capacity stands at 22.88 tmc ft against the gross capacity of 100.86 tmc ft. Unless the Tungabhadra is filled and gates opened, the water will not reach projects downstream in TS.
SRSP assistant executive engineer Ch. Mahender said that due to rain in upstream states, the project had received inflows of 3.984 tmc ft due to which the water level in the dam had increased by five feet. The Singur project continues to receive inflows due to rains in upstream Maharashtra. With this, officials are releasing 250 cusecs every day to meet drinking water needs in Medak and surrounding districts.
