Officials on alert as heavy inflows fill Prakasam Barrage in

The Prakasam Barrage across river Krishna in Vijayawada was brimming on Tuesday after a decade, thanks to copious flood flow from upstream, prompting officials to initiate precautionary measures along the river course.

More than 4.52 lakh cusecs of water reached Prakasam Barrage from upstream Dr K L Rao Sagar Pulichintala reservoir, which was also slowly getting filled for the first time with an inflow of 5.80 lakh cusecs, Water Resources Department officials said.

The department authorities reduced the storage level to 185.14 tmc ft at Srisailam reservoir on Tuesday and discharged 8.83 lakh cusecs downstream.

As large inflows of over 8 lakh cusecs coming in from upstream Jurala and other reservoirs, Srisailam will have adequate water storage even after letting out a large chunk into the downstream reservoirs, the officials said.

Accordingly, the Nagarjuna Sagar received 8.14 lakh cusecs, of which 5.36 lakh cusecs was let out into Pulichintala.

While Pulichintala has a capacity to impound 45.77 tmc ft of water, it is currently holding 23.82 tmc ft.

As more floodwater is expected to flow in, 4.22 lakh cusecs is being discharged from Pulichintala. All that is reaching Prakasam Barrage from where the excess water is being discharaged into the Delta canals and Bay of Bengal.

Way back in October 2009, Prakasam Barrage received a record flood of over 11 lakh cusecs.

In subsequent years, though, there has been no major inflow here and river Krishna virtually looked like a parched land on the downstream of the barrage.

The Krishna district administration and the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) got into an alert mode following the flood surge and have intiated precautionary measures along the river course.

Control rooms have been opened in the district Collectorate in Machilipatnam, Sub-Collectors office in Vijayawada and also the VMC office to respond to any emergency, an official release said.