Tourists, Visitors Face Curbs at Irrigation Project Sites
Forest officials also restricted access to Kuntala waterfall, which has been flowing heavily with floodwaters for the past two days.
Adilabad: Visitors from nearby areas as well as distant places flocked to small and medium irrigation projects to witness the scenic beauty of reservoirs filled with floodwaters. However, officials did not allow them to go close to the projects.
Forest officials also restricted access to Kuntala waterfall, which has been flowing heavily with floodwaters for the past two days. Although some tourists who had travelled long distances pleaded to be allowed closer, staff denied permission in the interest of safety.
Police too kept visitors at a distance from the projects, reminding them of Saturday evening’s incident in which a fisherman, Gangadhar, was washed away in the floodwaters downstream of the Kadam project. On Sunday, being a holiday, several youth and families visited various project sites, but authorities continued to enforce restrictions. At Pochera, however, forest officials permitted some tourists to view the water from a safe distance to avoid untoward incidents.
Meanwhile, some people were seen catching fish in streams and rivulets downstream of the projects as flood levels began to recede and water discharge was reduced.
On the other hand, the Penganga river received heavy inflows following intense rainfall upstream in Maharashtra. Nearly 2.5 lakh cusecs of water entered the river on Sunday. Irrigation officials lifted all the gates of the Korata Chanaka project on Penganga to release the floodwaters downstream. Villagers in Jainad and Bela mandals were alerted, as backwaters inundated standing crops and threatened 17 villages along the riverbanks.
Elsewhere, visitors thronged the Sripada Yellampalli project, which received heavy inflows from the Kadam project as well as its own catchment area. After a long time, several irrigation projects in the region reached full storage capacity due to the floodwaters.
