Rains, inflows into projects rekindle hopes of ryots on Kharif prospects
HYDERABAD Rains in the upstream catchment areas of Krishna and Godavari rivers have not only brought a bout of flood to most of the projects
HYDERABAD Rains in the upstream catchment areas of Krishna and Godavari rivers have not only brought a bout of flood to most of the projects in Telangana but have also rekindled the hopes of the farming community on the prospects of the crops being raised this Kharif season. Jurala reservoir, the gateway project across Krishna for Telugu States, which has been getting flood beginning early on Sunday, has become surplus, prompting the authorities to take up spillway discharge of flood from around 1 am on Thursday as the inflows increased to over 50,000 cusecs from Wednesday night. On Thursday evening, the inflows were recorded at nearly 90,000 cusecs.
To maintain a flood cushion as a standard operating procedure, the project engineers of Jurala lifted 10 crest gates for a height of one-metre each to discharge as a flood of about 40,000 cusecs. Two more gates were lifted in the afternoon to increase the spillway discharge to over 47,000 cusecs. Another 38,000 cusecs was also being let into the river course after hydel generation at the project. The flood being discharged at Jurala is also allowing hydel generation at the Lower Jurala hydel station, located downstream of the reservoir. The flood released at Jurala is building the water level in Srisailam reservoir downstream.
Water storage of Srisailam crossed 46 tmc ft, on Thursday evening, out of its full capacity of 215.8 tmc ft. “In the upstream, projects such as Almatti and Narayanpur (across Krishna) in Karnataka, and Ujjani (across Bhima) in Maharashtra, all discharging flood, continue to get inflows in a good measure and the meteorological department has forecast that it would continue for at least next 10 days in a measure of at least 30,000 cusecs”, flood monitoring officials of the Irrigation Department told The Hindu. Similarly, in the Godavari Basin Kaddam, Sriramsagar, Yellampally projects and Medigadda, Sammakka and Sitamma Sagar Barrages are getting heavy inflows with rains in the local (Telangana) catchment areas and in the upstream Maharashtra.
On Thursday evening (5.30 p.m.), the inflows were recorded as 48,150 cusecs, Kaddam 1.3 lakh, Yellampally 1.91 lakh, Medigadda 1.55 lakh, Sammakka 7.6 lakh and Sitamma Sagar 3.81 lakh cusecs, respectively. Meanwhile, the extent of crops cultivated so far this season has reached 83 lakh acres including cotton in 46.34 lakh, paddy in 20.46 lakh, maize in 4.7 lakh, redgram in 4.43 lakh, soybean in 3.67 lakh and greengram in 0.63 lakh acres.
The BriefWire