BENGALURU: The water levels in the reservoirs of the state are at alarming levels, according to the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Moni toring Centre (KSNDMC). Add to this the weatherman’s forecast of heavy rainfall and Maharashtra working on releasing 6 lakh cusecs of water downstream, the picture i s pretty grim. But wait.
To keep casualties at the minimum, the KSNDMC is using the Integrated Dam Management system, where all district administrations and gram panchayat members along with the reservoir level officials are roped in to send alerts and updates of the rising water levels.
The KSNDMC has installed 6,800 rain gauges in the reservoirs for this. According to KSNDMC reservoir data, most of the reservoirs are near full capacity and some are filled to the brim. Tungabhadra, Ghataprabha, KRS and Almatti are full.
Krishna Basin has 414.90 tmcft against the storage capacity of 417.52 tmcft. Bhadra 71.01 tmcft against its capacity of 71.54 tmcft while for Malaprabha, it is 36.62 tmcft against its capacity of 37.73 tmcft. A senior KSNDMC official said: “We are on constant alert as the water levels are rising and the rainfall is wreaking havoc in other places.
The staffers at the reservoirs are trying to maintain the border line. Otherwise, they will be forced to release water to ensure that the dams are not damaged. The situation is more grim this year wh e n c o m p a r e d t o previous years.”
Manoj Rajan, Director, KSNDMC, told The New Indian Express that real time well synchronised data sharing of dam management is happening by using technology to ensure that there are no untoward incidents.
“Rainfall data and the water levels in the dams are being shared every 15 minutes to take all possible precautions,. The danger mark is being closely watched. Last time untoward incidents and casualties were more as we didn’t have this system,” he said.