278 TMC water released from Sriram Sagar project in erstwhile Nizamabad

Hyderabad: Since June 1, as much as 278.785 TMC of water has flowed down to Godavari River from Sriram Sagar project near Pochampad in erstwhile Nizamabad district. This is only the second time that water in such huge quantity was released downstream of the project, which is considered as the lifeline for several parts of […]

Hyderabad: Since June 1, as much as 278.785 TMC of water has flowed down to Godavari River from Sriram Sagar project near Pochampad in erstwhile Nizamabad district.

This is only the second time that water in such huge quantity was released downstream of the project, which is considered as the lifeline for several parts of north Telangana, officials said. The reservoir was filled to its full capacity of over 1,091 ft for the first time in 1983, prompting officials from the Irrigation department to discharge over 1,000 TMC of water downstream into Godavari then.

After 1983, this is the first time after Statehood that officials are now releasing water from the project in such large quantities since it was receiving huge inflows from the upstream areas and neighbouring Maharashtra. The total inflows received by the project with gross storage capacity of 90.313 TMC since June 1 was 350.111 TMC while total outflows were 278.785 TMC so far.

The water released from SRSP flows into Yellampally project. On Sunday at 7.30 pm, 1.99 lakh cusecs of water was discharged through 32 of the 42 gates that were raised up to four feet height. Officials are constantly monitoring the water levels in the reservoir since India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast more rains due to the impact of cyclone ‘Gulab’.

“We are ready to deal with any situation, even if we receive three lakh cusecs of inflows because of the cyclone impact,” K Ravi Kotha, Project Assistant Executive Engineer told Telangana Today.

Officials said some more gates would be opened if the upstream areas of the project get heavy rains in the next few days because of the cyclone effect. The alert issued a few days ago asking local shepherds and cattlemen not to venture downstream areas of Godavari would continue for the next few days.

The project provides water to meet the irrigation requirements of 9.69 lakh acres in Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Nalgonda and Khammam apart from meeting water demands of National Thermal Power Corporation at Ramagundam.

In addition, the project has a power generation capacity of 36 MW. It also supplies drinking water to erstwhile Adilabad, Warangal and Karimnagar districts.

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