Spillway discharge of flood begins at SRSP

Except Singur and Nizamsagar all major reservoirs in Krishna, Godavari Basins have become surplus this season

The much awaited spillway discharge of flood from Sriramsagar project this season commenced on Monday afternoon with inflows into the major reservoir in the Godavari Basin crossing 50,000 cusecs. Last year, the release of flood from the crest gates of the project began on September 21.

According to the officials of the water resources department, four crest gates of Sriramsagar project (SRSP) were lifted for a height of two feet each around 3.30 p.m. to discharge about 12,500 cusecs water into the river course and by 6.30 p.m. two more gates were lifted for the same height to increase the flood release to 18,750 cusecs. As the flood cushion of the project came down below 3 tmcft, as against its capacity of 90.31 tmcft, the dam authorities started releasing water to the flood flow canal four days back, on September 10, to take water to Mid-Manair reservoir with the gravity flow. The reservoir holds key in the Kaleshwaram irrigation system too by acting as a balancing reservoir to supply water to all major storage facilities in the uplands of Telangana.

The water released to the river course from SRSP would flow towards Yellampally, Sundilla, Annaram and Medigadda barrages. With SRSP becoming surplus, only Singur and Nizamsagar projects in the Godavari Basin remain empty now with major flood forecast for them yet. With the Central Water Commission (CWC) issuing advisory stating that isolated heavy to very heavy rains are forecast in the north interior Karnataka, Marathwada, Vidarbha and central Maharashtra till September 17, the inflows into all major reservoirs both in the Godavari and Krishna Basins are expected to continue further.

With increase in inflows into Jurala to over 1.12 lakh cusecs, the spillway discharge at the project was also increased to over 98,000 cusecs from the 14 crest gates. Another, 33,200 cusecs water was also being let into the river course after power generation.

In the downstream at Srisailam too, the flood discharge from the spillway was increased to about 2.52 lakh cusecs with the nine crest gates lifted for 10-foot height each in addition to nearly 31,000 cusecs water release to the river course after power generation in the right bank hydel staiton of Andhra Pradesh. The project was getting inflows of over 2.25 lakh cusecs from Krishna (Jurala), Tungabhadra (Sunkesula) and Handri rivers. “The discharge has been increased to improve the flood cushion in Srisailam reservoir as more flood is forecast,” the dam authorities said when contacted.

The spillway discharge of flood was also increased further downstream at Nagarjunasagar and it was about 2.1 lakh cusecs from the 14 crest gates lifted for 10 feet height each. Another 28,500 cusecs was also being let into the river after power generation. Downstream of Nagarjunasagar, release of flood from Musi project too is adding to the river flow with the help of rains in the local catchment areas.