On Monday, the water resources engineers of Maharashtra state in the upper riparian State and CWC’s engineers supervised by Telangana’s engineers lifted all 14 gates in Babli Barrage on river Godavari, located near Dharmabad across Nanded district, Maharashtra upstreem immediate onshore area of Sriramsagar project.
Provisions that require Maharashtra to keep the gates open at specific times
It is therefore required of Maharashtra to have its barrage gates opened from 1st July to 28th October as well as 1st March every year according to a Supreme Court judgment made in 2013. This is meant to safeguard downstream State’s riparian rights and meet drinking water requirements respectively. The barrage had only 0.2 tmc ft water yesterday that would now be released downstream after being lifted.
Irrigation authorities of Telangana say that this year from June 1 rains within its territory have helped Sriramsagar project to record about 4.2 tmc ft water so far. As of morning hours on July 1st, reservoir storage was at10.47tmc feet with inflows recorded at around3800 cusecs capacity being90.31 tmcft against15.88 tmcft last year for the same day.
On Monday this week, it was recorded as 1059.6ft against 1091ft full reservoir level and 1064.9ft for the day one year ago.
Instructed by EE C.R Bansod from Maharashtra engineer; EE Chakrapani who were present together with Superintending Engineer SRSP Srinivas Gupta and Vamshi Assistant EE, Satish (Sub Divisional Engineer) and Executive Engineer E.Venkateshwarlu (CWC Upper Godavari Division) supervised lifting of barrage gates while operating motors for lifting them was instructed by EE VR Bansod to barrage staff.
Water levels remain poor in all the projects
However, water levels in all projects both in Godavari and Krishna Basins within the State continue to be low with no significant inflows so far this season. Only Jurala (7.26 tmc ft), Srisailam (6.36), Sriramsagar (4.22) have received fresh flows worth any mention this season and the water level in Nagarjunasagar is very low at 121.87 tmc ft on Monday against 148.73 tmc ft on July 1 last year.
