Telangana: Pranahita on the rise, brings cheer to projects linked to KLIS

The inflows into the Lakshmi Barrage from Pranahita are in the order of 1.38 lakh cusecs and the flood level is expected to rise further

Hyderabad: Pranahita, one of the major tributaries of the Godavari is on the rise, signaling big relief to the entire command of major irrigation sources drawing their supplements from the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

The inflows into the Lakshmi Barrage (Medigadda) from Pranahita are in the order of 1.38 lakh cusecs and the flood level is expected to rise further. The Pranahita sub basin, the seventh largest in India measuring about 1,09,078 square km, has been the major source for the KLIS.

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Project authorities lifted six flood gates of Medigadda barrage on Wednesday. More gates are likely to be opened in the event of further rise in the flood level in a day or two. The live storage of the barrage is being maintained at 13 TMC as against the gross storage of 16 TMC.

The live storage at Saraswati barrage, Stage II of the lift scheme, is being maintained at 8.5 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 11 TMC. The Parvathi barrage has a live storage of 7 TMC as against the gross capacity of 9 TMC. Five pumps are running at Medigadda while four each are in operation at Sundilla and Annaram.

Barring the Kaleshwaram lift scheme, no other irrigation project in the State had received any inflows in both the Godavari and Krishna basins. Even the Sri Ram Sagar Project on Godavari has not received no big inflows so far. The Babli Project, whose gates were lifted earlier this month, has no water to yield for SRSP.

SRSP draws 2.7 TMC from Kaleshwaram

Over 2.7 TMC of water was pumped into SRSP from Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation scheme so far this week. It was decided to lift 20 TMC of water from KLIS to provide supplements to the irrigation sources depending on it to meet the irrigation and drinking water needs in the ayacut during the first two months of the season after the onset of monsoons.

Pumping of water to the SRSP was scaled up from 0.25 TMC per day to half a TMC a day following the rise in the inflows. Pumping operations will go on taking the actual requirement in the ayacut of the project into consideration, according to KLIS Engineer in Chief, N Venkateswarlu.

The live storage in Yellampalli is maintained at 14 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 20 TMC, he said, adding that almost all the irrigation projects had their storage levels sufficiently built up to meet any sort of exigencies.

Ranganayaka Sagar full to the brim

Bringing cheer to farmers in its ayacut spread over the districts of Siddipet, Sircilla and Jangaon, the Ranganayaka Sagar project too was filled to the brim with waters lifted from KLIS. The live storage in the project is little over 2.7 TMC as against the gross storage capacity of 3 TMC. Over 1.10 lakh acre would get irrigation support under the project.

The Annapurna reservoir, which has a gross storage capacity of 3.5 TMC has also been filled to the FRL. Some 1.5 TMC of water is being pumped to the SRSP Rejuvenation scheme.