Vijayapura: After giving anxious days to people, mainly the farmers as they were worried since the Almatti Dam had not filled due to stoppage of inflow, the reservoir is now fast filling after the inflow has significantly increased. With a huge quantity of water gushing into the Dam every day, the officials of Krishna Bhagya Jal Nigam Limited (KBJNL) have started the outflow from the dam from the afternoon of Sunday July 10.
Though the dam is yet to get filled to its maximum capacity of 123 tmcft, since the officials are expecting the flow to continue because of the heavy rains in Western Ghats, they have not shut the crest gates and allowed the water to flow out.
The officials have recorded an inflow of 81910 cusecs on Monday July 11 while the outflow was 2976 cusecs. The total available water in the Dam now is 83.854 tmc. Last year at this time it was 90.997 tmc. The water now stands at 516.95 metres while the total height is 519.60 metres.
After discharging of water from the dam, the power generation has started from the plant for the first time of the present year. On Sunday July 10, the officials released 4000 cusecs of water to the power plant to resume power production for this year. Since only a limited amount of water was discharged, the plant produced only 26 MW of power from just one unit of the total six units.
In order to start operation of all the six units, it should receive around 45000 cusecs of water to be discharged which will generate 290 MW of water. Meanwhile the gushing water has covered the basin and surroundings of Krishna River.
Amid this, the District Administration has issued an alert to the people living near the Krishna River to remain alert as the water is being discharged from the Dam.
Water Resources Minister, Govind Karjol has directed the officials to start releasing water to all the tanks coming under the Almatti Dam limits to store the water for summers. After the direction, the officials have started releasing water to the canals of Mulwad Lift Irrigation Project.
The farmers would be happy as the District is receiving rains and the water would also get released to the canals for irrigation. With the dam getting filled up faster, the number of visitors to the Dam is expected to increase mainly during the weekends.
