Incessant rains: Water bodies receiving huge inflows in Telangana

The sudden rise in inflows prompted officials of Irrigation department to open radial crest gates of many projects to release water downstream.

Hyderabad: A few days after inflows into the major irrigation projects dropped significantly, the water bodies again started receiving huge inflows from the upstream and catchment areas due to incessant rains lashing the State for the last five days.

The sudden rise in inflows prompted officials of Irrigation department to open radial crest gates of many projects to release water downstream. If the rains continued for the next couple of days, then the water discharge capacity would be increased further after issuing an alert to the people living in low-lying areas near the water bodies, officials said.

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The major water bodies especially Priyadharshini Jurala Project (PJP), Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) in Krishna basin, Singur, Nizam Sagar, Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP), Kaddam and Sripada Yellampally project in Godavari basin were already filled to the brim.

The current storage capacity of these water bodies presently hovered between 85 per cent and 100 per cent. Officials were releasing water from SRSP in Nizamabad, PJP in Mahabubnagar and Lakshmi barrage in Jayashankar-Bhupalpally by opening RC gates.

Following instructions from higher officials, the water discharge from 28 RC gates at SRSP were increased to 1.49 lakh cusecs of water at 7.45 am on Sunday and by 4 pm the water discharged capacity was increased to 1.99 lakh cusecs through 30 gates since the project is receiving 1.75 lakh cusecs of inflows.

At PJP, the engineers were releasing 1.86 lakh cusecs of water to Srisailam dam through 35 gates as it is getting 1.81 lakh cusecs of inflows from the upstream Narayanpur dam in Karnataka and catchment areas.

For generating hydel power, the engineers were releasing 33,799 cusecs of water at PJP. Since the Lakshmi barrage was receiving 4.89 lakh cusecs of inflows, the officials were releasing the same quantity of water from 65 gates.

Heavy rain forecast till Monday morning

India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday said that heavy to very heavy rain was likely to occur at isolated places in erstwhile Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam districts till Monday morning.

In its weather bulletin, the IMD said that thunderstorms accompanied with lightning and gusty winds at a speed of 30 to 40 kmph were likely to occur at isolated places in all districts of Telangana. Light to moderate rain or thundershowers were likely to occur at a few places in the State from Monday to Tuesday morning.