The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Srisailam provides relief on irrigation, power fronts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 02, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Srisailam provides relief on irrigation, power fronts

Special Correspondent

Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar powerhouses contributing 40 million units per day to the grid

HYDERABAD: The full-level storage in Srisailam project has placed the State in a comfortable position on power supply and irrigation fronts.

On full-scale operation now, the powerhouses at Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar are contributing some 40 million units per day to the grid while generation by the rest of the hydel stations is only 10 mu. With this, the hydel generation has crossed the 50-mu mark per day, meeting a third of the State's power demand, which was 155 mu on Monday.

Till recently, the contribution by hydel stations as a whole remained below 10 mu.

More inflows likely

As further heavy inflows are expected in the Krishna, the full-scale and uninterrupted operation of the right and left bank powerhouses of Srisailam which together have an installed capacity of 1,670 MW and that of Nagrajunasagar (815 MW) is going to be longer.

This is likely to bring about the last year's situation when AP Transco had earned additional revenue out of the unexpected hike in hydel generation and shared the same with consumers.

A senior Transco official said the present storages in Srisailam and Nagarjunsagar were equivalent to 1,004 mu and 661 mu respectively. Nagarjunasagar will also be full in a few days if the present trend of heavy inflows continues.

Kharif prospects

On the irrigation front, nearly 50 lakh acres in the three regions of the State served by Krishna-based projects are now assured of water for kharif. An extent of nearly 45 lakh acres has already been given a second wetting.

Meanwhile, Transco has decided not to increase the duration of power supply to agriculture pumpsets beyond seven hours, despite the improved situation.

The decision has been taken as a precaution in view of the possible increase in demand to 180 mu a day as farmers are likely to use their pumpsets following better availability of groundwater.

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Andhra Pradesh