Sambalpur: The authorities of Hirakud dam in Odisha’s Sambalpur released season’s first floodwater on Sunday amid a steady rise in the water level at the reservoir following good rainfall on the upstream of the dam.
According to sources, the floodwater was initially released from sluice gate number 7 of the dam at 9 am. “As per the tradition, a puja was performed at 8 am and then sluice gate of the dam was opened at 9 am to release the floodwater,” informed Chief Engineer, Upper Mahanadi Basin, Ananda Chandra Sahu
Four more gates were opened later in a phased manner. “We are releasing 75,000 cusec floodwater from the five gates. Currently, 85,000 cusec of water is flowing through Mundali. All distributaries of the Mahanadi river system have become alive,” he said.
The release of floodwater will result in increasing the water level of the distributaries. Accordingly, an alert has also been sounded by the authorities, especially for the downstream areas. People have been asked to remain alert while entering into tributaries.
Sahu further said that the floodwater will take 48 hours to reach Mundali.
The water level of the dam was 614.87 feet at 8 am. “We have to bring the water level to 605 feet by July 31, according to the rule curve,” he added.
The chief engineer also accused Chhattisgarh of not cooperating and sharing status in upper catchment areas since 2019. “Chhattisgarh is not sharing information about release of water from dam and storage. It is neither attending nor convening NCDS meeting because of which the exchange of data between the two states is not possible. We are collecting information for floodwater management from CWC and own sources.”
There are 98 gates to release floodwater from Hirakud Dam. While 64 are sluice gates, the rest 34 are crest gates. Each sluice gate has the capacity to discharge 16,440 cusec of water when the reservoir level is at 630 ft. Similarly, each crest gate has the potential to discharge 16,238 cusec of water.
Last year, the authorities had released the first floodwater from the dam on July 11.
Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted the formation of a fresh low-pressure area around July 24. which may trigger more rains for Odisha.
