Even as the southwest monsoon is advancing over large parts of the state, the good news for farmers is that all the major reservoirs in Krishna Basin are brimming with flood waters.
With heavy rainfall in the catchment areas and copious inflows into the reservoirs in the Krishna basin upstream Prakasam Barrage, the delta farmers now can look forward to a good cropping season.
The water levels at Alamati reservoir stand at 1,698.33 feet, just a few notches below the full reservoir level of 1,705 feet. The dam, at present, is holding 98.51 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of water as against its gross capacity of 129.21 tmcft.
Jurala dam is brimming as the water levels are touching 1,042.91 feet when compared to its full reservoir level (FRL) of 1,045 feet, while the same for Narayanpur reservoir is 1,612.9 feet as against its FRL of 1,615 feet.
Same is the situation at Srisailam and Nagarjuna Sagar, which are also important to the delta farmers. Srisailam reservoir is receiving heavy inflows, with its water levels touching 815 feet as against the FRL of 885 feet, while Nagarjuna Sagar is maintaining a water level of 530 feet as against the FRL of 590 feet. The Nagarjuna Sagar has 168.15 tmcft of water as against its capacity of 312 tmcft.
Cropping activities
This scenario is quite in contrast to the previous years when the reservoirs upstream Prakasam Barrage would go dry, delaying the cropping activities in the delta region. Delay in the release of water into the Krishna Western Delta and Krishna Eastern Delta would force the farmers to undertake the sowing of paddy only towards the end of July, affecting the yield.
With the reservoirs brimming to their capacities now, the government could plan for the early release of water by the third week of this month.
