VIJAYAWADA: After receiving steady inflows in the last four days, which helped increase the storage levels in the reservoir, the incoming flood water to the Srisailam project is expected to reduce, according to the Central Water Commission’s forecast. Though the CWC noted that the trend of the flood was ‘falling’, the inflows are likely to increase as rains are expected to continue in the Krishna river catchment areas.
While the inflows to the Srisailam reservoir touched almost 90,000 cusecs on Saturday, they started to fall as the discharge from Jurala project has been regulated. As of 6 am Sunday, the instant inflows stood at 87,000 cusecs and as the day progressed they have come down to about 63,000 cusecs as of 3 PM Sunday. The outflow was around 27,000 cusecs. With steady discharge from Jurala over the last week, the water storage increased to almost 66 TMC on Sunday from 37 TMC on Tuesday as against the gross storage level of 215.81 TMC.
The level of water increased to 842.98 feet from 815.29 feet, as against the full reservoir level of 885 feet. The inflow to Prakasam Barrage has also come down to 9,000 cusecs. About 6,300 cusecs of water was diverted via eastern and western main canals of the Krishna delta. The inflow to Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage, Dowleswaram, remained steady with about 54,000 cusecs reaching the barrage. The Gotta Barrage, across Vamsadhara river, saw a marginal increase in the inflows which stood at 3,145 cusecs, while the outflow was around 3,090 cusecs.
Overall, the officials of the water resources department said about 380 TMC of water is available in all the projects across Krishna, Godavari, Penna and other river basins. Last year on July 19, there was 205 TMC. The gross full reservoir levels of all the projects is around 982 TMC. Of them, major reservoirs like Srisailam, Nagarjuna Sagar, Pulichintala and others account for 865 TMC, according to Water Resources officials.