HYDERABAD: For the first time this year, as many as seven gates of Srisailam dam were lifted by 10 feet on Saturday and 2.89 lakh cusecs of water was released to Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP).
From NSP, the water will be released to crops, once the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) distributes the available water to both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States.
Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao released water from Srisailam after performing puja and presenting “saare” to river Krishna at Srisailam on Saturday morning.
Uma Maheswara Rao told reporters that they have released water from Srisailam as per the guidelines issued by Central Water Commission.
The officials lifted four gates up to 10 feet height and started releasing 1.04 lakh cusecs water to NSP in the morning. Later, they lifted seven gates and released more water to NSP. The outflow from Srisailam was recorded at 2.89 lakh cusecs at 8 pm. As against the full reservoir level (FRL) of 215.81 tmc ft, the Srisailam dam had only 29.06 tmc ft on July 1. But, heavy rains in upper catchment areas helped the project reach 198 tmc ft capacity in 40 days. At 6 pm Saturday, the storage at Srisailam was 198.36 tmc ft.
Officials released around 72,000 cusecs to powerhouses, 2,400 cusecs to MGKLI, 2,025 cusecs to HNSS LIS, 26,000 cusecs to PRP head regulator, and another 1,59,912 cusecs through spillway. The total discharge from Srisailam was 2,63,118 cusecs.
As per the forecast issued by CWC on Saturday, Srisailam is expected to receive another 14.49 tmc ft of water in the next two days. The Jurala project is expected to get 5.8 tmc ft in the next two days. As per the gauge report of Sriram Sagar Project (SRSP) at 6 pm, the project was receiving 42,520 cusecs.