Vijayawada: With a major inflow of water into the Godavari river following heavy rainfall in its catchment areas, the Godavari head works authorities discharged 2.31 lakh cusecs of water from Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage at Dowleswaram on Thursday.By Friday morning, the discharge was expected to be around 3.50 lakh cusecs.Out of the discharge of 2.31 lakh cusecs, nearly 7,200 cusecs is being discharged into the central, eastern and western delta for cultivation.As the water level at Bhadrachalam was rising and the level was recorded at about 18.3 ft by Thursday evening, huge inflow of water was reaching the Polavaram project area.With this, the Polavaram authorities would discharge the water by lifting the crest gates of Polavaram Spillway. Accordingly, the flood water will reach the Cotton Barrage in about four hours depending on the velocity of the flow and, nearly 3.5 lakh cusecs is expected to be discharged by the early hours on Friday.The authorities lifted all 175 crest gates by 0.7 meters to discharge water from the Cotton barrage downstream into the sea.They say that if the rainfall continues further in the next few days, the discharge in Godavari at Cotton Barrage is likely to be at about seven lakh cusecs by July 22 or 23.
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