Despite all major projects in the Krishna Basin getting inflows early this water year compared to last year, their storage remains low even in the second week of July as the flood reaching the reservoir has been too little this June compared to June last year.
With the help of carry over storage, early inflows have helped the TS-Genco authorities take up power generational at Jurala and Lower Jurala hydel stations for six days this June in a small measure. However, it could not be sustained through the month, as it was possible last year with steady inflows.
Heavy rains in the Upper Krishna Basin aside, the flood to Almatti reservoir in Karnataka remains around 70,000 cusecs as of Friday evening and the water reached the dam since June 1 this year is hardly 20 tmc ft till July 8, as against 91 tmc ft received by the same day last year. Similar is the position of Narayanpur, Tungabhadra, Jurala and Srisailam reservoirs.
Jurala became surplus on July 17 last year as the reservoir received a flood of 29 tmc ft in June itself and another 10 tmc ft in July till the spillway gates were lifted. Compared to Almatti, the position of Tungabhadra dam is better this season with storage in the reservoir has crossed 68 tmc ft on Friday compared to hardly 36 tmc ft as on July 8 last year. The project was getting over 81,000 cusecs of flood as on Friday evening.
According to the Central Water Commission (CWC) forecast, flood level in the main Krishna river course could increase considerably over the next few days with Mahabaleshwar, the major catchment of Krishna and several of its tributaries, recording over 12 cm rain for the last three days.
Similar is the position of of the major reservoirs in the Godavari basis with Jayakwadi, Sriramsagar, Singur, Nizamsagar getting nominal inflows so far this water year. However, the flood in the Godavari course is heavy from Medigadda Barrage of Kaleshwaram Project with heavy contribution from Pranahitha river and the discharge of flood taken up at the reservoir from June 25 itself.
On Friday evening, the discharge of flood at Medigadda was over 1.04 lakh cusecs from 35 gates with water from local streams too join it from Parvathi (25 gates) and Saraswathi (15 gates) Barrages, which too form part of the Kaleshwaram project.
The flood discharge at Medigadda, according to the CWC forecast, could cross 1.13 lakh cusecs by Saturday morning and that at Kanthanapally Barrage below Medigadda to 1.23 lakh cusecs by the same time with flood from Indravathi too reaching it.
