HYDERABAD: Inflows into the Almatti and Narayanpur reservoirs in Karnataka dropped dramatically on Tuesday, dashing Telangana’s hopes of getting waters from the Krishna river. At Almatti, the inflows came down to 80,000 cusec from over 1,00,000 cusec in the past few days.
Irrigation department engineers told Express that inflows at the dam would decrease further to 50,000 by Wednesday. “Even if Narayanpur is filled to the brim and receives 10,000 cusec, Telangana will not get Krishna waters. Karnataka will divert this water for itself,” said an official.
N Sridhar, Executive Engineer of Priyadharshini Jurala Project, admitted that due to the unfavourable situation at Almatti, Telangana might not get Krishna waters in the current spell. “We will have clarity about the status of our projects across Krishna in the next couple of days,” he said. Irrigation department officials predict Srisailam in Telangana would get water from Almatti only after the next spell of rains in Karnataka.
The storage level at Almatti on Tuesday was measured at 104 tmcft, a deficit of 25 tmcft. The storage at Narayanpur was 29 tmcft, a deficit of 8 tmcft. The overall deficit in the two projects was 33 tmcft. While officials said this deficit might come down to 28 tmcft by Wednesday, they are sceptical over Karnataka releasing water to Jurala. It may be recalled that on July 6, the storage capacity in Almatti was 33 tmcft and in the last ten days, the project received around 70 tmcft.
Good inflows in Godavari
Meanwhile, the newly constructed Kaleshwaram project continued to report good inflows. The water level at Medigadda barrage was 96.5 metres, against the full level of 100 metres. The storage at Medigadda was 7.066 tmcft, against the full storage capacity of 16.17 tmcft. The water level at Annaram barrage was 115.75 metres against the full level of 119 metres. The current storage at Annaram barrage was 4.78 tmc against the full storage capacity of 10.87 tmcft.
