No Flood Threat In Mahanadi, Hirakud Dam Starts Closing Gates

Bhubaneswar: There is no flood threat in the Mahanadi downstream, the Odisha government said on Friday.

Principal Secretary of Water Resources, Pradip Jena said since there was no rainfall in the upper catchments of Mahanadi, the Hirakud dam authorities have closed down 10 gates by Friday noon.

“The inflow and outflow of floodwater from the 20 gates of the dam, which was 2,58,318 cusecs and 3.31 cusecs for per second, respectively, on Thursday, had come down to 1,51,550 cusecs and 3,28,295 cusecs per second, respectively, by 6 am Friday. As there is no rainfall in the upper catchments for last 24 hours, it has been decided to close 10 gates due to less inflow of water to the dam. Besides, we will also close the remaining gates in phases taking the weather condition in the upper catchments,” Jena said.

He further said that the floodwater released from the dam on Thursday will reach Mundali barrage near Cuttack on Friday night and it is expected that the release of the floodwater from the barrage will be approximately 5-5.50 lakh cusecs of water.

At present, the discharge of the floodwater from the barrage, which was about 8 lakh cusecs per second on Thursday, has come down to 4.58 lakh cusecs by 9 am on Friday. Taking the net discharge of floodwater into consideration, it will be around 5.50 lakh cusecs which will not pose any major flood threat in the downstream districts “We expect that the flood situation in Mahanadi will be normal by this evening,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the overflowing of Mahanadi floodwater has disrupted road communication in the Banki sub-division in Cuttack district, Mahakalapada block in Kendrapara district and Kujang block in Jagatsinghpur district.