Water levels in all State projects, reservoirs reach dead storage due to deficit rainfall in last monsoon

Hyderabad: Water levels in all the State projects and reservoirs are reaching the dead storage due to deficit rainfall in the last monsoon season.

State Irrigation officials said 14 major reservoirs in the State in the Krishna and Godavari basins have reached almost dead storage level. Current inflows in Jurala, under the Krishna basin, is only 154.05 tmcft . It was 1306.25 tmcft in 2021 and 885.85 tmcft in 2022 and 1229.98 tmcft in 2023. Storage in Srisailam is only 34.38 tmcft . At the same time last year it was 32.33 tmcft. The maximum water level in the reservoir is 885 ft; its present level is 810.10 ft.

The Nagarjunasagar reservoir had 166.78 tmcft stored last year. Now it has only 137.52 tmcft. The maximum level of the reservoir is 590 ft.

The current water level is 513.40 ft. The officials said under Nagarjunasagar 50 tmcft is required for cultivation of six lakh acres of crops in 2024 Rabi season. The availability of water is only 35 tmcft ; of that 27 tmcft was released by the BRS government to canals during the rainy season. The remaining eight tmcft will not meet irrigation needs . It is the main reason the new government made it clear that there will be no irrigation water in the current season.

Water levels in projects under the Godavari are also low. Average inflow to SRSP in 2023-24 is 205.75 tmcft. It was 367.05 tmcft in 2021 and 677.94 tmcft in 2022. Water stored in 2023 was 590.16 tmcft. Similarly the Sripada-Yellampalli project water level is only 7.85 tmcft. The project has a total water storage capacity of 20.1 tmcft, compared to 12.26 tmcft at the same time last year. The maximum water storage level of the project is 485.56 ft. The current water level is 466.79 ft.

The water levels in Osmansagar, Himayatsagar, Singur, Manjira, Akkampally also declined drastically . All these projects are providing drinking water to Greater Hyderabad. Currently, 25.38 tmcft is available in the five reservoirs. At the same time last year water level was 29.712 tmcft.

The full tank capacity of these five reservoirs is 39.783 tmcft, the officials said that changing climatic conditions and deficit rainfall contributed to a huge fall of water levels in the State reservoirs.