Krishna, Godavari bring copious water to Telangana projects

Krishna and Godavari, beginning to receive copious inflows from the upstream States of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

While various reservoirs on the two rivers in Telangana have been receiving water from rains in the catchment areas of the two rivers in Maharashtra and Karnataka, inflows from their local catchments in Telangana too have added to the rising water levels in the rivers.

Meanwhile, with heavy inflows into Godavari at Medigadda that was receiving around 95,000 cusecs of water on Tuesday, irrigation department officials put a temporary halt to pumping water back into the upper reaches of the river from Medigadda barrage as well as from Annaram barrage. It may be recalled that so far, water was being pumped beginning July 21 from Medigadda to Annaram barrage and from there back towards Sundilla barrage, all part of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

At Medigadda barrage, with the combined Pranahita and Godavari rivers pouring in about 95,000 cusecs of water, irrigation department officials opened 23 gates to let out about 1,50,000 cusecs down the Godavari river.

Notching up yet another milestone for KLIS on Tuesday, officials also conducted a wet test run of pump number five at Nandi Medaram pumphouse, which pumps water flowing through gravity from Sripada Yellampalli Project towards the Sri Ram Sagar Project’s Flood Flow Canal that in turn empties into the Mid-Manair project. Water from Sundilla is expected to be pumped to Mid-Manair from August 5.

The inflows into Kadem dam, one of the existing structures and a KLIS component, have been such that Forests Minister A Indrakaran Reddy formally opened the gates on Tuesday to release 8,800 cusecs



of water. Kadem river, after which the dam is named, has been seeing large inflows that saw water level rise to 694.28 feet, against the full reservoir level (FRL) of 700 feet.

Water from this dam flows into the Sripada Yellampalli Project, another major structure that is part of KLIS. Yellampalli was receiving 11,278 cusecs of water on Tuesday and currently has 6.75 TMCft of water against its full capacity of 20.18 TMCft.

Meanwhile, the Priyadarshini Jurala Project, the first stop for Krishna in Telangana, on Tuesday began receiving copious flows from Narayanpur dam in Karnataka that has been letting out an average of 1,23,000 cusecs of water. Narayanpur is receiving 1,16,843 cusecs from Almatti dam which too has been receiving heavy inflows to the tune of 1,18,000 cusecs. The fact that Narayanpur is releasing more water than it is receiving, indicates that inflows into it are likely to continue in the immediate future. This in turn is good news for Telangana as Jurala reservoir, which can store a total of 9.66TMCft of water, had 4,83TMCft on Tuesday and started releasing some of it through its Right and Left Canals.

Water from Jurala flows to Srisailam reservoir and then onwards to Nagarjunasagar reservoir. However, it is expected that Srisaiam, which was receiving run off from its local catchment of just about 84 cusecs, will see increasing inflows as Jurala begins to release more water in the next few days, if current pattern of inflows into it hold over the next next few days. Water level at Srisailam on Tuesday stood at 804.10 feet, against its FRL of 885 feet. Water level at Nagarjunasagar dam stood at 506.90 feet, against its FRL of 590 feet.