“The water level has reached 100 feet as against its full reservoir capacity of 120 feet exactly at 12 noon,” said PWD officials. The inflow of water was at 35,000 cusecs and the discharge was maintained at 20,000 cusecs for delta irrigation, while the discharge through canals was 850 cusecs on Friday morning.

The dam’s water level, which stood at 89.77 feet on September 21, went up to reach 100 feet within the last four days following heavy discharge from Karnataka.

Due to heavy rain in Cauvery’s catchment areas, Karnataka on September 20 released a maximum of 72,000 cusecs of water after both Kabini and Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) dams reached their full capacity. Thereafter, the water discharge from Karnataka began to come down gradually day-by-day as rains receded in the catchment areas. Water released in the Mettur clocked 71,000 cusecs on Tuesday night, but reduced to 61,000 cusecs on Wednesday night and further to 35,000 cusecs on Thursday night.

“Even as the inflow is coming down gradually, it still continues to be higher than the outflow, helping the water storage level in the dam to increase further,” said the official.

The water storage level in the Mettur dam, which stood above 100 feet for more than 300 days, had dropped to 99.640 feet on June 16, just five days after the reservoir was opened on the customary date of June 12 for kuruvai cultivation in delta districts. Since then, the water level continued to be below 100 feet.