Rising dam levels bring gush of joy to agriculture sector

Several major reservoirs have recorded live storage levels two-three times more than last year, as inflows have been encouraging during the first month of the monsoon season.

This is a good sign for farmers and citizens in general as reservoirs with enough water will not lead to a drinking water problem.

The Almatti reservoir, the backwaters of which witnessed unprecedented flooding last year, is almost half-full in the first month itself, with inflows set to increase due to good rainfall in River Krishna’s catchment region.

Though monsoon is below average in Malnad and South Interior Karnataka region till date, conditions were favourable for monsoon to intensify in the coming days, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Among the reservoirs, the live storage at KRS dam in Mandya district — primary source of drinking water to Bengaluru — was at 15.26 TMC as on June 24, compared to 6.29 TMC on the same day last year. Bengaluru consumes around 18-20 TMC water annually.

At Almatti in Bagalkot district, the live storage was at 55.24 TMC — almost three times the level recorded last year (17.55 TMC). Though the inflow to Tungabhadra dam in Ballari district is yet to improve, the live storage was 7.93 TMC as compared to 2.04 TMC last year.

G Srinivas Reddy, Director, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, told DH that the initial level storage of the dams prior to the monsoon, too, was among the highest in the last decade and half, due to heavy inflows generated during the fag end of monsoon last year. “The Krishna catchment region that feeds Almatti and Narayanapura dams has received good rainfall in the last two weeks and monsoon will pick pace again in the region soon,” he said.

Measures were also being taken to prevent any flooding incidents this year, due to the dam management policy which mandated regular release of water once the dams reached 50% capacity. “The release of water will be dependent on weather forecast too,” he said.

According to the IMD, monsoon will intensify in Malnad and South Interior Karnataka districts, including Bengaluru, from Thursday. Fairly widespread rainfall is expected in the region for the next four to five days.