Brimming reservoirs cheer farmers

Hyderabad: Telangana State experienced its first spell of heavy rains in the current monsoon season since Friday evening and brought cheers to the state which has been facing acute water shortage for irrigation and drinking water needs for the last one year.

Added to this, good rains in the upper riparian states has resulted in all the reservoirs under the Krishna and Godavari basin getting good inflows during the last 24 hours. According to the weather office, the state is likely to witness heavy to very heavy rainfall for the next three days. In view of this, the Agriculture and Irrigation departments have geared up and alerted the farmers to take up the farming activity in full swing. The irrigation officials were monitoring water levels closely in every reservoir to mitigate rain-related disasters like breach of the dams, canals and rivulets along the Krishna and Godavari rivers.

Officials said that the Almatti reservoir has been receiving 79,000 cusecs of water and Narayanpur received one lakh cusecs. Officials said with heavy inflows of 83,000 cusecs from Karnataka, the Jurala project in Mahbubnagar was brimming with water.

The present water level in Jurala was 8 tmc feet as against the total installed capacity of 9.66 tmc ft. Officials said that the Jurala will continue to get inflows for the next 24 hours. Water levels in the Srisailam reservoir are also increasing gradually.

Water level at Srisailam reached to 36 tmc ft as against the capacity of 215 tmc ft with the steady inflows of 81,000 cusecs. Until Friday, water levels in the reservoir were not more than 20 tmc feet.

The heavy inflows in Jurala and Srisailam would help increase water levels in Nagarjunasagar dam in the next three or four days. Presently, water levels in Sagar dam were only 122 tmc ft of the total capacity of 312 tmc ft. Last year, it had received zero inflows due to deficit rains. All the projects in Godavari basin are also in a spate. Singur project, Nizam Sagar, Sriram Sagar Kaddem Narayan Reddy project, Sripada Yellampally project and Sitaramsagar (Dummuguem ) were receiving good inflows under the influence of heavy rains. Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kuamr Reddy instructed all field engineers, superintending engines, executive engineers, deputy executive engineers, AEEs and AEs to be available at the headquarters for emergency response. He directed them to monitor the hourly inflows into minor irrigation tanks, major and medium irrigation projects and ensure that the gates were operated as per the guidelines.

The minister instructed engineers to ensure release of flood water as per standard operating protocols and issue advance warning to downstream habitations with help of Collectors and Superintendents of Police in the districts.