The recent rains have brought copious inflows into the Srisailam reservoir, which is close to hitting its full capacity of 885 feet in a couple of days.

However, while the filling up of the reservoir has brought cheer to both the Telugu States, it has also resulted in a spat over the use of water beyond what the Krishna River Water Board has allotted to Andhra Pradesh.

Complaint Following a compliant lodged by Telangana over AP using up more water than what was allowed, the Board directed AP to stop release of water from Pothireddypadu as excess water has already been drawn from the system.

The KRWB in a letter to AP has mentioned that the water release had already crossed 12.43 TMC feet as against the allocation of 5 TMC feet.

The Telangana government is keen that the water from Srisailam be released to Nagarjunasagar dam downstream as it would augment the drinking water supply of the Nalgonda district and Hyderabad. Nagarjunasagar was below its draw-down level till recently. However, things have slightly improved lately.

Copious inflow The water level at Srisailam has reached 881 feet as against FRL of 885 feet. It was barely 790 feet in August. The storage capacity is up at 193.4 TMC feet as against the full capacity of 216 TMC feet.

However, in Nagarjunasagar, which Telangana is concerned about, the water level is at 517 feet as against FRL of 590 feet and storage at 144.94 TMC feet as against FRL of 312 TMC feet.

With Srisailam receiving fresh inflows from Jurala upstream, and other tributaries of the Krishna, the average inflow is about one lakh cusecs over the past 24 hours. Power is being generated from both right and left bank and water released downstream.

Apart from this, most reservoirs on the Krishna, including those in Karnataka, Almatti and Narayanpur have filled up.

Telangana scene Meanwhile in Telangana too, the situation has improved significantly in the past week following heavy rains in the catchments areas of both the Godavari and the Krishna.

The Musi river, on whose banks the old City of Hyderabad is located, has received huge inflows in the past few days, including on Monday when the city and surrounding areas received over 13 cm rain in few hours. Six of the 12 crest gates of the Musi river were opened.

The situation was no different at Singur project which hit full capacity of 29.9 TMC feet, forcing irrigation department to release water.

In the two reservoirs located in the city, Osmansagar and Himayatsagar, the inflow has not been significant.

The deluge on Monday resulted in the Mir-Alam tank, located adjacent to the Nehru Zoological Park, overflowing and inundating the areas around the lake. The Safari Park in the Zoo was inundated, forcing authorities to close it.

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