Overflowing Krishna river damages power house

Farmers in rain-starved Andhra Pradesh and Telangana may be cheering heavy inflows from reservoirs in neighbouring Karnataka and Maharashtra, but the power generating company managing the under-construction lower Jurala hydro electric power house at Atmakur in Mahbubnagar district suffered Rs 20 crore loss when the overflowing Krishna waters caused widespread damage.

Engineers working on the project were hoping to sync the six power units in the upper station with the lower power house, but the river water that broke into the power house’s service gates on midnight Wednesday ended their plans.

Twelve workers, including Assistant Director Srinivas Reddy, were rescued from the site with the help of ropes.

Pumps with 500 horse power capacity were brought from Kothagudem and Pulichintala to drain water from the station.

However, Jurala reservoir continued to receive a heavy inflow of 93,000 cusecs from Narayanapur dam in Karnataka on Friday. Twenty-five Crest gates from Narayanapur were lifted to release water.

Telangana officials said Jurala will attain full reservoir level if the discharge from Narayanapur continues at this level for the next 48 hours.
Meanwhile, Sunkesula reservoir in Kurnool district of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh released 41,000 cusecs to Srisailam reservoir downstream.

The inflow has prompted sowing of Kharif crops in almost all the districts in the Krishna command area in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.