Sambalpur: A day after opening six gates of Hirakud dam in Odisha’s Sambalpur district, the authorities opened 16 more sluice gates on Friday to discharge excess water from the reservoir.
With this a total of 22 sluice gates have so far been opened by the Hirakud dam authorities as the water level in the reservoir went up significantly following heavy rain in the upper catchment areas of Mahanadi river.
A total of 16 sluice gates of the dam were opened in two phases on Friday. While ten gates were opened in the morning, the dam authorities opened six more sluice gates later in the day to manage the water level in the reservoir.
Six sluice gates had initially been opened on Thursday, a day after the authorities closed all gates of the reservoir.
However, gates were opened again as the water level of the reservoir went up due to heavy rains in the upper catchment areas of Mahanadi river overnight.
The water level of the reservoir had gone past 629 feet against its holding capacity of 630 feet.
All the sluice gates of the dam were closed on Wednesday afternoon after the water level dropped.
Engineer-in-Chief of the State Water Resources Department Bhakta Ranjan Mohanty had said there was no flood threat with 3.70 lakh cusec water flowing through Mundali.
Meanwhile, heavy rain may resume in Odisha with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting likely formation of a cyclonic circulation over east-central Bay of Bengal at the end of September and its intensification into a low pressure area in the first week of October with a low probability of cyclogenesis over the same region.
Notably, the state has recorded 1077.0 mm rainfall against the norma of 1107.2 mm till September 22 this monsoon season. While two districts have received excess rain and 25 are in the normal category, only three have recoded a shortfall.
