Hyderabad: With the authorities opening four more gates of the Srisailam project, in view of increasing water inflows, prospects of Hyderabad’s key Nagarjunar Sagar dam finally filling up after many years have brightened.
While Srisailam was getting an inflow of 350,000 cusecs of water, Nagarjuna Sagar was receiving inflow of 132,000 cusecs. Water was being released from eight flood gates of Srisailam.
Against the maximum level of 180 metres, the water level in Sagar had reached 162 metres. Against 115 tmc ft of water on the same day last year Sagar had 172.4 tmc ft yesterday. As the level was likely to reach the maximum capacity the news has brought the cheers to the authorities in Hyderabad as the city gets drinking water from the project.
With Sagar full to the capacity the city will not face any drinking water shortage until next year, officials said.
While the daily drinking water supply in Hyderabad is 448 million gallon, the city gets 268 million gallons per day from the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, on the river Krishna.
The rapid increase in water levels at Nagarjuna Sagar was also good news for farmers in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. With improvements in water levels authorities announced the schedule of release of water for irrigation from the project on Sunday.
While 40 tmc ft of water will be released from August 26 to November 28 through the right bank canal to the farmers in Andhra, 14 tmcft of water will be released through left bank canal to Telangana farmers.
Meanwhile more gates of Srisailam were likely to be opened if the heavy inflows continue for another day. The irrigation department officials said that the project had got filled up much in advance than expected. Normally the project gets filled up after heavy rains under the influence of cyclonic storms in Bay of Bengal in September-October period. But this year itv has filled up in August itself. The present level of around 200 tmcft the project had only 20.3 tmcft on August 18 last year marking a dramatic improvement.
