Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Water release into Krishna keeps evacuees away from home

Staff Reporter

Discharge at Nagarjunasagar has been increased to 5.50 lakh cusecs

VIJAYAWADA : Forecast of an increase in the discharge from Nagarjunasagar and the sudden increase in discharge of water from Jurala and Tungabhadra Projects in the upper reaches of the Krishna river prevented evacuees from returning home, despite a two-foot drop in the level of water at Prakasam barrage here on Monday.

The level that was 14.10 feet at 6 a.m. plummeted to 12 feet at 6 p.m., with the inflows at the barrage dropping from 5.14 lakh cusecs to 3.97 lakh cusecs in the matter of 12 hours. Irrigation officials, however, said that it was not yet safe for the evacuees to return to their homes, because the flood would continue. The discharge at Nagarjunasagar had been increased to 5.50 lakh cusecs at 7 p.m. because the inflows of over 7 lakh cusecs had been forecast from Jurala and Tungabhadra projects to Srisailam project.

Water released

All the 5.52 lakh cusecs being received by Jurala project and the nearly 2 lakh cusecs being received by Tungabhadra were being released to Srisailam project to prevent overflowing of the projects.

Despite efforts to deplete the water levels, both Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar projects are nearly full because of heavy inflows. Srisailam project, which has the capacity to hold 263.6 tmc feet of water, was already holding 223.6 tmc feet, while Nagarjuna Sagar, which can hold a maximum of 408.2 tmc feet, was holding 377 tmc feet. An inflow of 7 lakh cusecs would fill the Srisailam reservoir, which was 86 per cent full, to the brim in less than a day, if no water was released from the project.

Safety limits

Engineers regulating the water in the reservoirs had to do the balancing act to ensure that discharges of the respective projects and barrages were within the safety limits.

Officials managing the relief camps across the city said that 4,650 persons were still staying in the camps, and they were advised not to return home.

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