Heavy rains: Almatti Dam gates lifted letting off 65000 cusecs

Hyderabad: Farmers under the Krishna basin projects after enduring crop holidays and scarcity conditions over the last few months are now seeing a glimmer of hope. Farmers under both Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects in Telangana, and for that matter even in Andhra Pradesh, are breathing a sigh of relief with the release of water from the Almatti dam in Karnataka.

As many as 14 out of 26 gates of the project were lifted with unrelenting rains triggering a flood threat in the upper Krishna basin, the catchment of which was spread over parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. As part of the flood control measures, the Almatti project authorities started releasing over 65,000 cusecs of water since last night. The present storage had already touched 102 TMCs as against the gross storage level of 129 TMC at Almatti. The inflows were in the order of 1.04 cusecs. The immediate beneficiary of the water release was Narayanpur Dam in Yadgir district of Karnataka district. Farmers under Narayanpur also experienced a crop holiday last year because of poor inflows.

At the present level of inflows that would help build the storage levels by six to seven TMCs a day, the project is also expected to reach the maximum level in a matter of another 24 hours. Even the Bhima basin projects including Ujjaini are also adding to the flood flow into Krishna by about 25,000 cusecs since Monday. Jurala, the first major project in Krishna basin in Telangana is expected to get big inflows in two days.

Jurala has a flood cushion of less than two TMC with the present storage being over 7.68 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 9.66 TMC. The Tungabhadra dam is also receiving inflows of over 28000 cusecs. But it had a flood cushion of over 70 TMC to be filled. It may not add any significant releases to the flood flow in Krishna immediately.

Srisailam dam, one of the joint projects of Telangana and AP, is set to receive big inflows in less than a week to bring cheer to the farmers in the command of the Krishna projects. The water level in Srisailam has dipped by over 24 feet below the minimum draw down level (MDDL) of 834 feet against the full reservoir level (FRL) of 885 feet. Once the flood flow reaches the joint projects of the two Telugu States, the focus would be mainly on the management of projects. As per the understanding reached during bifurcation, Telangana and AP were entrusted with the operational control of Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam respectively.

Since the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has shouldered the task of managing the projects, because of unresolved water sharing issues that left the two States at loggerheads, the role of the river management board authorities will be under watch.