Heavy rainfall in parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh has slightly eased the water crisis in both the States as inflows in to major irrigation projects have increased over the last two days.
Following the heavy rains of last three days in upper areas of Karnataka and floods in Tungabhadra river, Srisailam project has received season’s first inflows. Following the massive inflow in Tungabhadra on Tuesday touching a high of 1.6 lakh cusecs of water, the authorities had opened 20 gates of Sunkesula project. However after the inflows came down 15 gates were closed and 13000 cusecs of water was being discharged in to Srisailam project, said K Gangadhar Rao, deputy executive engineer of irrigation department.
Officials hope that Srisailam project was likely to receive 6 tmc ft of water. Due to the failure of monsoon this year so far the project has not received any inflows and its level had touched an all time low of 27.2 tmcft of water creating a specter of severe drinking water crisis in three districts of Rayalaseema apart from hitting the prospects of agriculture crops.
The other good news for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh was from Karnataka where following the heavy rains water was released for the first time from Almatti dam to Narayanpur and from there to Jurala project in Mehbubnagar district of Telangana. All these projects are built on river Krishna and if the Jurala project gets filled then water will reach Srisailam.
Officials said 10600 cusecs of water was released from Amatti to Narayanpur in Karnataka and 9900 cusecs from Narayanpur to Jurala. So far Karnataka Government had not released any water from its two projects to Telangana.
Situation was likely to improve further as the Hyderabad Meteorological Center has forecast more heavy rains in Telangana for three more days. Hyderabad which was under thick cumulonimbus clouds, received heavy rains throughout the day. Weather officials said that the city was likely to receive 5 cms of rains over the next 24 hours. “The situation has improved with the rains of last three days. The rainfall deficiency has come down to 25% from 27%”, said YK Reddy, Director,
Indian Meteorological Department, Hyderabad. He forecast more heavy rainfall in the State over the next two to three days.
The rains through most part of Wednesday turned many areas of the city into lakes as water entered in low-lying areas. Many major junctions of roads including the busy lakdi Ka Pul-Punjagutta -Ameerpet-Kukatpally Corridor were under water creating a massive jam for several kms. The area near State Secretariat, Moazzam Jahi Market, and Nampally junctions were also under water.
The commuters already facing a lot of difficulties due to the under constriction Metro project, had the worst day as the rains threw the traffic out of gear.
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation deputed 81 emergency teams for the relief measures and clear the waterlogged roads. The people living along the drains were also put on alert.
However nobody was complaining against rain as the city was facing an imminent drinking water crisis in the absence of rains. Following the rains of the last three days, water reservoirs of the city especially Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar were receiving good inflows. It is first time this year that these reservoirs have received the rains.