Heavy rain in the catchment areas of Krishna river, leading to copious inflows, has filled up several major dams along its course, including the Srisailam dam, bringing cheer to Telugu States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Barely weeks ago both States were warring over the sharing of water and power generation, alleging loss of water resources and exploring various options to resolve the water issue. The flooding water has filled up the dam, and water is now being let out by lifting all the 10 crest gates downstream to Nagarjunsagar, the other major dam.
Both State power utilities are now busy generating power from their hydel power units located on the left and right bank of the river at the dam.
Remarkably, in less than a week, the dam with a full reservoir level of 885 feet and storage capacity of 215.8 tmc is brimming and the irrigation authorities were forced to lift two crest gates on Wednesday, following it up with five gates on Thursday morning and later three other gates, thereby releasing water from all 10 crest gates.
After nearly 13 years, all crest gates of the dam have been lifted in July month itself, which augurs well for the other mega dam of Nagarjunasagar with a total storage capacity of 312 tmc and full reservoir level of 590 feet. The dam has water at 543.5 feet, according to Reservoir Storage Monitoring System.
The Srisailam dam is now getting about 4.3 lakh cusecs of water and is discharging about 1.4 lakh cusecs through crest gates and water use in the left and right bank power houses.