Pulichintala project records highest discharge of 4.26 lakh cusecs

The flow in the Godavari was steady on Friday with an outflow of 6 lakh cusecs at the Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage in Dowleswaram, but in the Krishna the flood fury varied from project to project.

The Pulichintala project, which is on the edge of the plains, recorded the highest discharge of 4.26 lakh cusecs. The project, with a capacity of 45 tmcft, received an inflow of 4.06 lakh cusecs.

The Nagarjuna Sagar project, which is immediately upstream Pulichintala, recorded an inflow of 2.55 lakh cusecs, but had to discharge 3.38 lakh cusecs to avoid overflow of flood water over the crest of the reservoir.

The Srisailam project, which receives water from both the Krishna and the Tungabhadra tributary, recorded an inflow of 2.83 lakh cusecs, but it had to discharge 3.81 lakh cusecs as it had no flood cushion. The irrigation authorities said there seemed to be no let-up in flood flow to the Krishna.

Into the Bay

The inflow to the Almatti Dam had been more than 2 lakh cusecs for the last three days. It was 2.03 lakh cusecs on Friday. Srisailam Dam had been receiving over 2 lakh cusecs for the past six days. It received over 3 lakh cusecs on Wednesday and Thursday. The inflows were likely to cross the 3 lakh cusec-mark in a day again, experts said. The Godavari discharged 1,126.19 tmcft into the Bay this season (from June 1) and the Krishna 353.20 tmcft. Together, they discharged 1,479.39 tmcft into the Bay.