TREADING WARILY: Residents of New Rajarajeswaripet find their way across the newly laid road to their colony that was submerged by Budameru waters in Vijayawada.

VIJAYAWADA: The widespread rains in Krishna district have exposed flaws in the drainage system, with habitations and lands along the Budameru drain being submerged resulting in large-scale damage to standing crop. The mandals worst hit by the drain are Gudivada, Nandiwada and Bapulapadu.

Standing crop in thousands of acres in these three mandals was submerged by water that spilled over the bunds of the drain in the last five days. Irrigation officials said that the drain was not designed to handle such a large amount of water and that it needed to be modernised.

Classification

The watercourse of Budameru is classified as a rivulet until the Enikepadu Under Tunnel (a bridge across a canal in irrigation parlance) and as a drain, after that. The Budameru rivulet that goes into spate frequently is known as the Sorrow of Vijayawada, but it is the drain with the same name that has been causing havoc in the district in the past few days.

The Irrigation Department has been voicing the need to modernise Budameru rivulet and drain at various forums since the flooding of several residential areas in Vijayawada last September.

The State Government even finalised a Rs. 84.50-crore project for strengthening of bunds, de-silting, de-weeding and extending bridges that were acting as bottlenecks and forwarded the project to NABARD for funds.

The Krishna basin covers 45 per cent of Krishna district, Thammileru basin 3.3 per cent, Ramileru and Budameru basins 2.67 per cent each. Budameru plagued Vijayawada from time immemorial.

The digging of a 12-km diversion channel from the Velagaleru Regulator only provided partial relief. Budameru Diversion Channel (BDC) has the capacity to carry only 7,500 cusecs.

It has to be widened uniformly to 84 metres to increase its carrying capacity to 15,000 cusecs.

Whenever the rivulet goes into spate, the gates of the Velagaleru Regulator are raised to release water into the regular course that has become highly silted or encroached to a large extent. Water hyacinth that covers the bed of the watercourse collects near bridges and obstructs the free flow of water when there is a flood.

Vijayawada Irrigation Circle deputy superintending engineer K. Rajendra Prasad on Thursday said that the drain was unable to handle the unprecedented amount of rainfall.

The rainfall in the past six days was almost equal to the normal rainfall of the entire year. Drains with a capacity of five tmcft had to handle 50 tmcft of water.

Water was overflowing the banks because the bunds of the drain were not designed to handle a flood of 25,000 cusecs and not because something was obstructing the free flow of the floodwaters, he said.

However, the heavy flood in Budameru is posing danger to at least eight villages in West Godavari district on the banks of the Kolleru Lake.

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