VIJAYAWADA: With inflows continuing to the reservoirs in the upper catchment areas of Krishna basin, the Water Resources department is expecting a good year. While the reservoirs are already brimming with more water compared to the previous year, water from upper regions is set to reach the State in a day or two, almost two weeks earlier than last year.
According to officials, water from Jurala reservoir is expected to be released to Srisailam late on Tuesday night. "We are expecting inflows anywhere between 10,000 cusecs to 20,000 cusecs to begin with. It may take around 2 days for the water to reach Srisailam reservoir," an official from the water resources department said. Last year, water from Jurala was released downstream Srisailam on July 31.
As of 6 pm Tuesday, Srisailam reservoir has 37.51 TMCft of water against its full reservoir level (FRL) gross capacity of 215.81 TMC ft, leaving a flood cushion of 178.41 TMC ft. The water level stood at 815.29 feet as against its FRL of 885 feet. If heavy flows continue to be discharged from Almatti, Narayanpur projects, Srisailam will get huge quantity of water, the officials added, as Jurala has a storage capacity of only 9.66 TMCft.
In Nagarjuna Sagar, water is available at 530 ft against the FRL of 589 ft as of 6 pm Tuesday. About 169 TMCft of water is present against the gross FRL of 312.05 TMCft. Pulichintala, which has a FRL of 45.77 TMCft, has 7.7 TMCft. The inflows to Prakasam Barrage continued at almost 10,000 cusecs.While 6,200 cusecs were diverted into right eastern and west main canals of Krishna delta, the surplus water was let downstream.
On the other hand, Dowlaiswaram Barrage had an instant inflow of 48,679 cusecs at 7 pm. About 2,500 cusecs were utilised for eastern, central and western deltas and the surplus stood at 65,944 cusecs. Gotta Barrage, across the Vamsadhara River, had water at 121.62 feet as against its FRL of 125 feet.
Thanks to the surplus rainfall this year, the water available in all the major reservoirs is at 275.19 TMCft, which is significantly higher than 176 TMCft on the corresponding day last year. The total storage capacity of all the major reservoirs is 770.7 TMCft.