ANANTAPUR: The Tungabhadra reservoir has received heavy inflows following incessant rainfall in upstream areas of the Western Ghats in Karnataka.
The dam this time recorded the highest storage in a decade.
On Monday, the reservoir recorded 31.18tmc-ft of water with 1,607.78ft. Inflows of 43,446 cusecs into the reservoir were recorded from upstream areas and 359 cusecs of outflows.
Last year, the water level was just 7.07tmc-ft in the reservoir and the 10-year average in the history of the TB reservoir was only 6.48tmc-ft.
Dam officials noted that the dam received a huge inflow in the past decade. “At least 24tmc-ft of additional water was received into the dam this time than of the same day last year. The dependent areas can get more water this year than the previous years,” an official said.
The average water level in the Tungabhadra reservoir was only 1,580ft in the last ten years. But the reservoir level recorded 1,607.76ft in the present season. The inflows were constantly reaching the dam because of incessant rain in the upstream areas in the past few days.
The inflows into the dam was only 302.58 cusecs in May last year while it was 43,446 cusecs this season.
The constant inflows into the reservoir would yield a total of 407.97tmc-ft, which was only 302tmc-ft last year. The High-Level Canal passes through Anantapur and Pulivendula in AP and parts of Vijayanagar and Ballary districts in Karnataka. The Low-Level Canal passes through parts of Vijayanagar and Raichur districts of Karnataka. Many parts of Kurnool district in AP can get more allocations for their irrigation and drinking water needs this year.
In addition, over 200 irrigation tanks in Rayalaseema region witnessed full storage capacity this time, after many decades, due to the arrival of Krishna waters through the Handri Neeva Sujala Shravanthi and Galeru Nagari projects.
The diversion of Krishna waters from Srisailam through HNSS and GNSS projects filled the tanks to sufficiently meet the drinking and irrigation needs for the region even during the peak summer.
For instance, Madakasira, the highest peak in AP, was seen with full storage of water after four decades. In addition to the diversion of water from HNSS phase –II, heavy rainfall resulted in the over-flowing of water in the peak summer season.
“We never see the tank filled even during the peak rainy season, but overflow of water in the summer season this time could meet the drinking water needs of the municipality,” Satyanarayana from Madakasira observed.
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