Hyderabad: Despite no heavy rains being reported from the local catchment areas on Monday, inflows into the major reservoirs built across Godavari and Krishna were steady. Due to heavy rains in upper reaches of Sriramsagar project especially in Maharashtra, the flood of 4 lakh cusecs continued for the last 36 hours and is likely to continue on Tuesday.
The situation in Godavari and Manjeera-based projects like Sriramsagar, Yellampally, Nizamsagar, Singur did not change on Monday. All dams across Godavari and Manjeera in TS are full to the brim and surplus water is joining the main Godavari river.
The Lower Manair dam, another major irrigation project with a capacity of 24 tmc ft near Karimnagar city, was the latest one getting surplus water on Monday.
Ministers T. Harish Rao and Etela Rajender opened six floodgates and released the water into the Manair river.
However, the situation in Krishna-based projects remains steady, with inflows from Jurala project hovering between 1.70 lakh cusecs and 1.40 lakh cusecs. The water being discharged from Jurala is flowing into Srisailam dam, raising its level to 881 ft against full level of 885 ft; the capacity touching 193 tmc ft against the full capacity of 215 tmc ft.
If the floods continue like this, officials plan to maintain the level at 884 ft and release the excess to downstream Nagarjunasagar dam through power houses located on either banks of the dam.
NS Dam is presently getting around 75,000 cusecs (around 7 tmc ft) from Srisailam and the level has reached 519 ft, against full reservoir level of 590 ft. At present, the level at NS Dam has reached 148 tmc ft, against the full level of 312 tmc ft.
This means still there is a flood cushion of about 164 tmc ft. Assuming the present capacity at NS Dam is not disturbed and only the capacity is raised, at the rate of present inflows, it will take about 25 days for the dam to fill.
