Srisailam project across river Krishna, the lifeline for the farmers of Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema has finally started filling up with the floodwaters from the upstream States reaching the project.
According to the irrigation officials the project, which was almost empty for several months was receiving a huge inflow of 1.73 lakh cusecs since Thursday as water was being discharged from Almatti and Narayanpur dams in Karnataka and Jurala Priyadarshini in Mahbubnagar district of Telangana. Srisailam dam was also receiving copious inflows from Tungabhadra project in Karnataka.
Against the total capacity 215.80 tmcft of water, Srisailam presently has only 29.1695 tmcft of water and officials say that the present flow will have to continue for a considerable time to full the dam upto the maximum level. The total depth of Srisailam was 885 feet and water level was 800.40 feet at present.
Only after the Srisaialm gets filled that the authorities will think of releasing the water downstream to Nagarjunagar another crucial project for the Krishna belt farmers. Total deputh of the project was 590 feet and present level of water was at 511 feet.
Heavy rains for the last couple of weeks have filled up Almatti and Narayanpur across river Krishna in Karnataka and water has reached the maximum level forcing the authorities to start discharging water downstream to Telangana.
As the Jurala project in Telangana was receiving the flood waters for the last three days and against the total capacity of 1045 feet, its level had reached 1040.23 feet, the authorities in Telangana have also started releasing the water to Srisailam. Similarly the water discharge from Tungabhadra dam in Karnataka was also increased significantly on Friday to more than 65000 cusecs on Friday forcing the Karnataka officials to alert the authorities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to take precautionary measures along the river course.
As Tungabhadra stream also joins the river Krishna at Srisailam, the inflows from both the directions will lead to rapid increase in the water level in the project, officials said.
At present the inflows into SS dam from Jurala had crossed 1 cusecs as water was also being discharged from up stream Almatti and Narayanpur dams. It was expected to reach 1.71 lakh cusecs by tonight.
While 65000 cusecs was being discharged by lifting 11 crest gates of Jurala, another more than 35000 cusecs was discharged through hydel power generation plants. Jurala was also releasing water through Kolisagar lift irrigation scheme.
Heavy inflows have brightened the prospects that both the major dams of SS and Nagarjuna Sagar will be filled this year as more than half of the monsoon season remains. It has not only elated the farming community in the region but has also drastically reduced the chances of any friction between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over sharing of river waters.