Maharashtra began releasing minimal amount of water from the Koyna dam on Friday afternoon.
Officers opened three gates to release 2,100 cusecs of water from the dam to ease the burden on the dam that is now around 80 % full.
The dam has 80.4 tmcft of water as against a gross capacity of 105 tmcft of water. This follows a spell of heavy rain in Satara and surrounding areas on Thursday. This is the first time this year that Maharashtra has begun releasing water from the dam built over the Koyna, a tributary of the Krishna.
Till now, the State has released water from the seven reservoirs on the Krishna and other riparian rivers in south Maharashtra.
Maharashtra irrigation officers conveyed to Karnataka irrigation officers the quantum of release on Friday morning. Irrigation officials in Belagavi estimate that the Koyna dam would be full if the same amount of rain continued through the week.
Inflow into the Hidkal on the Ghataprabha increased to 15,112 cusecs as against an outflow of 5,000 cusecs. Hidkal dam is nearly 95 % full. If the inflow continues to be above 10,000 cusecs, the outflow could increase to around 10,000 cusecs in the next two-three days, the officials said.
The average inflow into the Alamatti dam was around 99,800 cusecs, compared to 1.2 lakh cusecs on Thursday. But the outflow reached 1.32 lakh cusecs. The storage is 113.59 tmcft of water, officials said.
