KURNOOL/ELURU : Heavy rain continued to lash Rayalaseema districts on Wednesday.
Downpour in Polavaram in West Godavari district rendered around 200 people homeless. Itukalakota, a tiny village near the Polavaram Right Main Canal delivery point in Polavaram Mandal, bore the brunt of heavy rain on Wednesday. Many poor people live in the village have lost their utensils, aadhar, pattadar passbooks and ration cards. On account of heavy rain in the mandal, water is overflowing on the Kothuru Causeway, the only way to the tribal villages. Due to the floods, 19 tribal villages were cut off from the mainland. The crop in 600 acres of land at Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (PLIS) was inundated as there is no outlet to recede the water.
The rivers, rivulets and drains, mostly in Rayalaseema, continued to be in spate due to torrential rains lashed the region for the last couple of days. The Srisailam reservoir is near full though outflow from it through hydel power generation units, Pothireddypadu, Handri Neeva Sujala Sravanthi and Kalvakurthy Lift Irrigation is about 89,00 cusecs and inflows continue to be copious and forceful -- 1.47 lakh cusecs.
Srisailam near full
The water lever in Srisailam reservoir touched 884.4 ft as against the full reservoir level of 885 ft. The dam now has 211.9 tmcft water as against the full storage capacity of 215 tmcft. Water Resources Minister D Umamaheswara Rao is expected to formally lift the gates of Srisailam reservoir at 7 a.m. on Thursday.
The Krishna river catchment continued to receive torrential rain, letting huge volumes of water into Handri, Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers which are in spate. Officials in Kurnool have alerted people living in vulnerable areas on the banks of Handi and Tungabhadra and have begun shifting them to safer places. Irrigation Department officials said that a huge volume of water - 265 tmcft - is now available in the 634 irrigation tanks in Kurnool district.
On Wednesday, Irrigation officials released water at the rate of 5,000 cusecs from Gajuladinne Project (GDP) located at Gonegandla Mandal headquarter in Kurnool district to Handri River and the discharge has been increased to 15,000 cusecs later. Srisailam reservoir is almost full as inflows from Jurala through Krishna River and Sunkesula and Handri through Tungabhadra are continuing.With Srisialam almost full and heavy discharge of flood water is continuing, the generation of hydroelectricity has reached its peak at 22 million units since from October 1. According to APGenco officials, presently six generators are running with 150 MW capacity at the left powerhouse and five generations are running with 107 MW capacity at the right powerhouse.