KURNOOL: In what is turning out to be one of the rarest dry spells in the history of the Srisailam Reservoir, the perennial Krishna river has failed to deliver its customary first floodwaters even by the fourth week of July.
The prolonged dry spell, attributed largely to lingering El Niño conditions and severely deficient southwest monsoon rainfall in the upper catchments of Maharashtra and Karnataka, has left the reservoir waiting for its first significant inflows of the season.
Historical data from recent years shows that water realisation at Srisailam Reservoir typically begins between July 13 and 19.
This year, however, the Srisailam Reservoir remains starved of flood inflows as July draws to a close, triggering deep concern among irrigation authorities, farmers, and power generation officials in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Srisailam storage plummets as weak monsoon deepens AP’s water crisis
The severity of the crisis is starkly reflected in the reservoir’s depleted storage. As of Thursday, Srisailam held a meagre 41.51 TMC ft of water against its gross capacity of 215.81 TMC ft, with the water level standing at 820.90 feet—far below the Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 885 feet. During the corresponding period last year, the reservoir held 209.16 TMC ft (883.90 feet), underscoring an alarming year-on-year decline.
Local catchment conditions offer little respite. Since July 1, Kurnool district has recorded below 30 mm rainfall against its normal average of 117.23 mm. Similar deficits across Karnataka and Maharashtra have drastically reduced runoff into both the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers.
“The Srisailam project is entirely dependent on a monsoon turnaround upstream. We are expecting monsoon activity to pick up in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and local catchments. Unless substantial rainfall occurs there, flood inflows into Srisailam will not materialise,” Srisailam Reservoir Superintending Engineer Venugopal Reddy told TNIE.
The deficit is echoing across the broader Krishna basin, where combined storage across major reservoirs in AP and the Tungabhadra system stands at just 356.61 TMC ft—a mere 33.55 per cent of the total 1,062.89 TMC ft capacity. Currently, Tungabhadra holds 28 TMC ft (105.79 TMC ft capacity), Nagarjuna Sagar 137.34 TMC ft (312.05 TMC ft capacity ), and Velugodu Balancing Reservoir 1.74 TMC ft (16.95 TMC ft capacity). Upstream in Karnataka, Almatti stands at 103.77 TMC ft at Narayanapur at 24.01 TMC ft.
Water resources experts warn that the delayed revival of the monsoon could trigger a multi-sectoral crisis across the State. Farmers of the Srisailam Right Bank Canal (SRBC) and Handri-Neeva Sujala Sravanthi (HNSS) ayacut are hesitant to begin Kharif sowings.