KURNOOL: Srisailam reservoir, currently at dead storage level, is expected to be full mostly by the first week of August. The reservoir has inflows from both Jurala and Tungabhadra, having flood water from upstream.
The officials hope the inflows will reach in next four or five days. Presently, only 54.25 TMC of water is stored at Srisailam reservoir which has a full capacity of about 253.63 TMC, executive engineer G Manik Rao said.
Srisailam reservoir is facing the worst scenario this year. Normally, flood water comes from both Jurala project and Tungabhadra dam to Srisailam. After Srisailam is full, the water will be released to Nagarjunasagar, generally during the first or second weeks of July. Tungabhadra dam of Karnataka state has 1627.52 ft of water while its FRL is1633 ft. In other words, it has 81.14 TMC of water while the total capacity is 100.94 TMC. Now it is getting 60,133 cusecs inflow but due to shortage the TB dam is not releasing water downstream.
Jurala project has 315.30 ft of water level while its FRL is 318.50 ft. It is still getting only 400 cusecs of water from Narayanpur.
However, with the rains upstream, both the projects are expected to be filled within one or two days. Narayanpur dam released one lakh cusecs of water yesterday and mostly it will reach Jurala project on Wednesday. Tungabadhra dam also will get water in two days and releases the same to Srisailam.
Thus Srisailam dam officials are waiting for inflows from both Tungabadhra and Jurala projects. They expect the dam to reach FRL on August 5-6, Manik Rao said. As of today, the water level in Srisailam project stands at 834.30 ft against FRL of 885 ft, he added.
“We can not release water downstream Nagarjuna Sagar project, as there is not enough water. Also, there is a High Court stay on the release of water till the water level reaches 854 ft,” he said.