Water levels in 7 major water bodies in Krishna basin rising: CWC

Hyderabad: The Central Water Commission (CWC) on Thursday said the water levels in seven out of 13 major irrigation projects in Krishna basin including Priyadarshini Jurala Project (PJP) in Mahbubnagar in Telangana along with other projects in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were rising due to incessant rains in catchment areas.

The Krishna River flows through Koyna, Veer and Ujjain dams in Maharashtra, Hippargi barrage, Almatti, Narayanpur and Tungabhadra dams, Singatluru barrage, all in Karnataka, PJP in Telangana, Srisailam Dam on the borders of Telangana and AP, and Sunkesula barrage, Pulichintala and Prakasam barrage in AP.

In its flood forecast bulletin pertaining to Krishna basin released at 11.30 am on Thursday, the CWC said the water levels in Hippargi barrage, Almatti, Narayanpur, Ujjain, PJP, Pulichintala and Prakasam barrage were rising.

The water levels in Koyna, Veer dam, Sunkesula and Srisailam dam were steady while in Singatluru barrage and Tungabhadra, the water levels were decreasing, the CWC said. Of the 13 irrigation projects, Narayanpur, PJP and Srisailam dam were receiving huge inflows of over 2.11 lakh, 2.47 lakh and 4.06 lakh cusecs of water, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Current Storage Capacity (CSC) of Nagarjuna Sagar Project (NSP) reached 98 per cent prompting the engineers to discharge 3.31 lakh cusecs of water by lifting gates. The NSP is receiving as much as 3.48 lakh cusecs of inflows from the upstream Srisailam dam and catchment areas.

As against the Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 590 ft, the water levels reached 588 ft. With the NSP getting huge inflows, the officials also started power generation. In Godavari basin, the CSC in Nizam Sagar reached 92 per cent since it is receiving 16,000 inflows. As against its FRL of 1405 ft, the water levels in Nizam Sagar reached 1404 ft, officials said.