River Krishna in spate, Central Water Commission advises ‘maximum’ caution

VIJAYAWADA: With River Krishna in spate due to continuous rains in its upper catchment area and projects in the upper riparian state discharging most of the floodwater, all major reservoirs in the river basin in AP received massive inflows ranging between 5.5 lakh cusecs and 6.6 lakh cusecs on Sunday. 

The Central Water Commission (CWC) advised ‘maximum caution’ as all the major reservoirs—Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar and Pulichintala—lifted at least 10 crest gates, 20 crest gates and 15 gates respectively as they are near full reservoir level (FRL) and are going to receive more inflows in the next 24 hours. As the flood water is being discharged into lower Krishna basin at Prakasam Barrage, where the district officials have  issued second flood warning at 9:45 pm.

Water Resources Minister P Anil Kumar held a review meeting with the district collectors, municipal commissioners and irrigation officials of Krishna and Guntur districts and directed them to shift the residents in low-lying areas to rehabilitation centres. 

Prakasam Barrage, which crossed the first flood warning level at 11.30 am, recorded an inflow of 5.37 lakh cusecs at 7 pm. After utilising 5,000 cusecs through canals, the officials discharged a surplus of 5.32 lakh cusecs. 

The Irrigation department officials said that the inflows may surge to 7 lakh cusecs, highest this season, by Monday morning. While first flood warning is issued when the outflow from the barrage crosses 3.96 lakh cusecs, the second warning comes at 5.66 lakh cusecs. The Krishna district administration sounded off caution in low-lying areas, which were inundated due to the heavy discharge downstream, and deployed teams to take care of rehabilitation. 

In the evening, the minister said that Srisailam reservoir was discharging about 6 lakh cusecs to Nagarjuna Sagar. Nagarjuna Sagar recorded an inflow and an outflow of 6.69 lakh cusecs. The officials said that Pulichintala project was getting around 6.6 lakh cusecs at 7 pm and the outflow was 6.1 lakh cusecs. “It is expected to increase to 7 lakh cusecs at 8 pm and hence the outflow will be over 6.5 lakh cusecs, which will increase the discharge at Prakasam Barrage to 7 lakh cusecs by Monday morning,” the officials said. 

The barrage was getting inflows from Pulichintala, which in turn was getting inflows from Nagarjuna Sagar and Srisailam—and from tributaries such as Munneru, Paleru, Kattaleru and others due to rains in Telangana.

“River Krishna is getting heavy inflows from PD Jurala project in Telangana. As River Tungabhadra is flowing above normal in Mantralayam of Kurnool district, the combined flow of Krishna and Tungabhadra is being received in Srisailam Dam. Since most of the dams in Krishna basin are near FRL and expected to get inflows in the range of 4.5 to 6 lakh cusecs from PD Jurala and its downstream, maximum caution is to be maintained for releasing the excess flow,” the CWC’s flood advisory read.

While Srisailam has a flood cushion of less than 0.5 TMC as against its FRL capacity of 215.81 TMC, it was discharging water by lifting 10 crest gates, Nagarjuna Sagar at noon reached its FRL of 312.05 TMC prompting the officials to lift 20 gates. Pulichintala at 7 pm had a flood cushion of 2.23 TMC as against its FRL capacity of 45.77 TMC and was discharging the flood by operating 15 gates.

Notices to residences along Karakatta

As the flood threat is looming large over the residences along flood bank (Karakatta) in Undavalli and surrounding areas upstream and downstream Prakasam Barrage, the revenue department is said to have issued notices to the houses, including to that of Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu, advising them to move out of the premises. According to the flood trend, seven lakh cusecs is expected to reach the barrage by Monday morning and it is likely to inundate all the residences along the flood bank. In the past too, the officials issued similar notices during massive flooding 

Control room set up

Collector Imtiaz directed the tahsildars and police officials to coordinate with officials of all departments and provide accommodation for the public in low-lying areas in the nearby government schools and provide them food and drinking water. For any assistance, public can contact the control room set up at the sub-collector’s office by dialling 0866 2574454/2576217