HYDERABAD: Efforts by the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (AP Genco) to utilise whatever little quantity of water available in Jurala project on the Krishna for maximum power generation have yielded result at last.

Jurala dam accounts for a storage of hardly 12 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet), 34 times lesser than that of Nagarjunasagar (408 tmcft). Yet, this tiny storage has the potential to generate power nearly half to that of Nagarjunasagar in future.

Blueprints have been prepared by the Andhra Pradesh Genco to set up a second hydro-electric project based on the Jurala waters, with a capacity of 240 MW. Coupled with 234 MW of the first

project being executed on the dam, this will take the total capacity to 474 MW. If operated at full level during floods, the two stations will generate 12 million units a day. This will augment the State supply during any shortage as experienced now.

Sources said the Central Electricity Authority has given an in-principle clearance to the new project, named `Lower Jurala', planned at an outlay of Rs. 885 crores. It will come up at Gundala, 8 km downstream of the dam. Sufficient "head" (pressure) is assessed to be available here as the massive flow falls down by 20 metres. The water will be diverted to the river's left bank even before it drops and will be secured to the powerhouse by a canal for generation.

A mini-dam will be constructed across the river for this diversion. Lower Jurala will have six units, each of 40 MW capacity.

Chinese equipment

Meanwhile, work on Jurala hydel station based on the dam itself, has reached its final stage. Heavy equipment like generators and turbines, despatched from China by the China Machinery Export & Import Corporation, .

Karnataka has withdrawn all its objections against the project, agreeing to the arrangement by which it gets 50 per cent power generated by the project without sharing the cost.

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