Smiles were back on the faces of farmers in the Krishna Delta region with the two major projects Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar receiving heavy inflow of water following copious rainfall in Karnataka.
However, the happiness was marred in some parts as Addanki branch canal developed two major breaches on Friday soon after the water was released into it from Nagarjuna Sagar right bank canal to meet the drinking water needs of Addanki in Prakasham district.
Officials said that due to the sudden release of 1,100 cuseces of water into the Addanki branch canal in the wee hours, it led to breaches at two places in Ballikurva mandal and massive amount of water was going waste.
Nagarjuna Sagar Divisional Engineer K Chandramouli said that water release was being stopped to plug the breaches.
In view of the heavy inflow into Srisailam and rising level of water in Nagarjuna Sagar, the irrigation department officials started releasing water into the right bank canal of the project this morning.
Chief Engineer Veera Raju said that the water was being released only to meet the drinking water needs of Prakasham and Guntur district. “Water for irrigation will be released later on”, he said. To ensure that the water reaches the last village and no water is wasted, the District Collector was asked to ensure patrolling by the police and the revenue officials along the canals.
Following the release of water from Jurala project in Telangana, the water level had risen significantly in Srisailam dam. While authorities were discharging 1.35 lakh cusecs of water from Jurala, the water level in Srisailam had increased to 830 feet against the full reservoir level of 885 feet. The storage of water in the project had crossed 50 tmc feet against the total capacity of 216 tmcft.