Anantapur: Irrigation staff gears up to face cyclone threat

Anantapur: Officials in the irrigation department in coordination with district administration are working out strategies in advance how best to bail out people in vulnerable project areas, with the threat of another cyclone with prospects of heavy rains looming large over the state almost in all districts from November 26 onwards.

Already all the mini-reservoir projects in the district are overflowing with life as well as village tanks. The overflowing of Chitravati river, Yogi Vemana, Chinarayagudi Swamy and other reservoir gates had been lifted to prevent inundation of surrounding villages. The weather office alert issued indicating another bout of heavy rainfall is frightening people and officials as well as another cyclone would miserably effect people living in vulnerable coasts.

Officials and irrigation engineers are attending to repairs of crest gates on a war footing in Chinnaraya Swamy project in Tanakallu as one gate could not be lifted during the recent cyclone. Any further water level increase might submerge Chinaraya village.

During the recent rains Yogi Vemana reservoir flowed beyond its 1 tmc capacity thus forcing engineers to release 40,000 cusecs of water downstream. The project crest gates no 2,5,7,8 gates developed repairs and could not be lifted. Engineers are attending to repairs on a war footing. In the Chitravati reservoir, 80,000 cusecs of water reached the reservoir from the Karnataka side. About 90,000 cusecs of water was released from the reservoir. The reservoir capacity is 10 tmc of water and the reservoir has water to its fullest capacity. Further rains and floods will submerge surrounding villages, officials fear.

Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan geared up the entire machinery to effectively handle any eventuality arising out of another bout if floods as predicted by weathermen.