The prospects of all major reservoirs in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the Krishna Basin getting filled have further increased with another day of heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of Krishna and several of its major tributaries in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
However, the water storage position of major reservoirs in the Godavari Basin up to Sriramsagar in Telangana remains poor to moderate with no major flood reaching Singur, Nizamsagar and Sriramsagar projects so far.
According to a bulletin issued by the Central Water Commission (CWC), very heavy rainfall was recorded in Mahabaleshwar (15.6 cm), Koyna (13.6 cm) and Warana (14 cm) in the 24-hour period up to 8.30 a.m. on Saturday. Besides, it has stated that there is forecast of of heavy to very heavy rainfall in central Maharashtra for the next 4-5 days.
“Due to this there is likelihood of rise in water levels in Upper Krishna Basin in the upstream of Almatti Dam,” the CWC bulletin stated. In tune with the CWC forecast, the flood into Almatti has started increasing again on Saturday and reached over 1.22 lakh cusecs in the evening from 80,000 cusecs on Friday. Accordingly, the outflows from the dam are expected to go up again leading to higher inflows into Narayanapur, Jurala and Srisailam projects downstream.
Flood monitoring officials stated that Tungabhadra dam in Karnataka is reaching surplus stage with its storage reaching 96.5 tmc ft on Saturday evening against its capacity of 100.86 tmc ft, although the inflows have come down to below 30,000 cusecs. Jurala was getting inflows of 1.25 lakh cusecs at 9 p.m. on Saturday with discharge of over 1.23 lakh cusecs flood from 13 spillway gates (about 92,000 cusecs) and with power generation (32,000 cusecs).
In the downstream, Srisailam was getting inflows of over 1.26 lakh cusecs that includes supplementation from Tungabhadra (Sunkesula Barrage) and Handri rivers of about 2,500 cusecs and the remaining flood from Jurala and the catchment area in between. At Prakasam Barrage in AP, the flood was over 63,000 cusecs with the help of rains in the catchment areas in Nalgonda, Khammam districts in Telangana, and Krishna in AP.
In the Godavari Basin, the water storage in Sriramsagar crossed 43 tmc ft against its capacity of 90.31 tmc ft with inflows of about 13,000 cusecs.
In the upstream, Jaikwadi dam in Maharashtra is filled only up to 70% of its capacity of 102.73 tmc ft with inflows of 24,000 cusecs. Singur and Nizamsagar reservoirs also remain almost empty with storage of only 2.27 tmc ft and 0.97 tmc ft against their capacity of 29.91 tmc ft and 17.8 tmc ft, respectively, and the inflows are nominal.
However, in the downstream, flood of about 3.18 lakh cusecs was reaching Laxmi (Medigadda barrage) with flood in Pranahita and rains in the local catchment areas, and at Polavaram in AP., the flood was over 11.65 lakh cusecs with very heavy and extremely heavy rains at several places in the catchment areas of tributaries of Godavari in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
Shayampet recorded 24 cm rain followed by 21 cm each in Hasanparthy, Hanmakonda and Atmakur, 20 cm each in Bheemadevarapalli and Huzurabad, 19 cm each in Venkatapuram and Gundala, 17 cm each in Parakal and Mulug, 16 cm each in Venkatapur and Aswapuram, 15 cm in Manugur and 14 cm in Bejjanki, Dharmasagar, Perur and Dummugudem, all in Telangana, during the 24-hour period till 8.30 a.m. on Saturday.