Two crest gates of Nagarjuna Sagar Project lifted to discharge flood flow

According to irrigation officials, more of its gates will be opened by evening, increasing the volume of discharges

Hyderabad: Ending a year-long crop holiday and severe scarcity conditions that stalked its vast ayacut of 18 lakh acres spread over the Telugu States of Telangana (6.3 lakh acres) and Andhra Pradesh (11.74 lakh acres), two of the 26 crest gates (gate no 13 and 14) of the Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) were lifted releasing a flood flow from the dam on Monday.

More of its gates will be opened by evening, increasing the volume of discharges. The river bank villages in Nalgonda and Palnadu districts were put on alert a day in advance. Fishermen were advised not to venture into the river.

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The decision to lift the project gates was prompted by a substantial inflow of 4.22 lakh cusecs adding to the project storage by 33 to 35 TMC a day, largely due to heavy outflows from the Srisailam reservoir, which was one of the four upstream projects that were already brimming due to the impact of the surging flood flows in Krishna river.

The NSP storage, which reached 288 TMC on Monday morning, was set to touch its gross storage capacity of 312 TMC by the end of the day. The reservoir level rose to 584 feet as against its full reservoir level (FRL) of 590 feet.

Water has already been released to the Nagarjuna Sagar Left Canal (NSLC) which supports irrigation in about 6.30 lakh acres of its total ayacut of 18 lakh acres. The right canal takes care of the rest. Andhra Pradesh is drawing 5,700 cusecs from the right canal head regulator of the project as against 4,613 cusecs released to the Left canal supporting the ayacut in Telangana.

The project gates remained closed for the whole year in 2023 as it received the lowest inflows in 40 years as in the case of all the other dams in the Krishna basin because of the deficient rainfall in the catchment area extended over the Maharashtra and Karnataka, besides the lower riparian States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The project gates were lifted last time on August 17, 2022. All the 26 gates of the project were lifted that time discharging some 3.3 lakh cusecs in view of the heavy floods in the river. The project gates were opened on August 1 in 2021, August 12 in 2020, August 12 in 2019 and August 20 in 2018.