The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Linganamakki gets filled up in a record time

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 10, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Linganamakki gets filled up in a record time

B. S. Satish Kumar

In full flow: The Linganamakki reservoir in Shimoga district.

BANGALORE: The copious rain in the State, especially in the Malnad region, has created a new record in terms of statistics. Linganamakki, the State’s biggest hydel reservoir, is filled up in a shortest duration which is said to be the first time in history.

The water level in the reservoir reached the maximum on August 8-9. According to sources in the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited, it is the first time in the history that the water level in Linganamakki has reached the full so early during the monsoon. It is the shortest time taken for this reservoir for a complete fill-up.

Of course, the previous record has been broken by a few days. The water level in this hydel reservoir had reached its full on September 16-17, 2005 after a gap of 11 years. Again the reservoir was completely filled on August 12 in 2006.

The early filling up of the reservoir is a pointer to the intensity of the monsoon, KPCL sources said. In fact, there was an indication in July that reservoir might get filled up early. Because, the reservoir had received 42,509 million cubic feet (mcft) of water from June 1 to July 2 which had surpassed a 12-year record in terms of inflows then.

The reservoir which has a maximum level of 1,819 feet has the potential to generate 4,557.03 million units of power when filled up completely.

It is not just the Linganamakki which is filled up, the water level in other two major hydel reservoirs of Supa and Mani is also increasing. Supa is filled up by 67.56 per cent of its total capacity while Mani is filled up by 80.4 per cent of its total capacity.

With this the power supply position in the state is comfortable, the KPCL sources noted.

Power consumption

The State’s daily power consumption, which was around 100 million units about a month ago, has now crashed to 75-86 million units following heavy rain. It is a great relief compared with the power supply scenario in April when the consumption had surpassed 130 million units.

The decline in consumption is being mainly attributed to the non-use of irrigation pumpsets in rural areas and fans as well as airconditioners in urban areas.

With the water level in all the three major hydel reservoirs increasing due to heavy rains, the State has reduced the generation from its thermal sources and instead drastically increased the generation from hydel sources.

According to sources in the Karnataka Power Corporation Limited, the generation from the hydel sources which will be normally around 20 million units a day has now been increased to 49 million units.

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