VIJAYAWADA: As the flood inflows receded to the Krishna, the crest gates of Srisailam, that were lifted a week ago, were closed on Monday night.
However, by Tuesday evening, the flood discharge increased and the officials are planning to operate the gates as and when required as the reservoir, at 7 pm, had 215.08 tmcft of water at 884.91 feet as against its full reservoir level (FRL) of 215.81 tmcft at 885 ft.
Though the discharge reduced to less than 75,000 cusecs in the day, Srisailam dam saw higher inflow of 1.2 lakh cusecs in the evening.
The outflow was a little under 69,000 cusecs with water being used by the power house and pumped to the canals. The Central Water Commission, however, advised caution due to the rainfall warning.
Similarly, the officials on Monday stopped the spillway discharge at Nagarjuna Sagar Project by closing all the gates that were opened to let the flood water down. At 12 noon, the reservoir had 305.92 tmcft of water at 587.7 feet as against its FRL of 312.05 tmcft at 590 feet.
Its inflow and outflow were recorded to be 30,000 cusecs each. The inflow to Pulichintala project, which had 45.66 tmcft of water at 8 pm as against its FRL of 45.77 tmcft, was around 21,000 cusecs, and the officials continued to discharge 36,000 cusecs down to Prakasam Barrage. The barrage at 7.30 pm was getting an inflow of 53,000 cusecs and its outflow was a little over 50,000 cusecs.
On the other basin of Godavari, the flood discharge continued to fall throughout the day. At 5 pm, about 8.58 lakh cusecs discharge was recorded at Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage in Dowleswaram and the first warning was also withdrawn, according to the officials.
The trend indicated that the flood would further recede.Sunkesula Barrage across Tungabhadra at 12.30 pm had an inflow of 37,000 cusecs and the outflow was also the same.