As rains continue to lash the Cauvery catchment area in Karnataka, water inflow to Mettur dam in Tamil Nadu has doubled in less than a day, reaching one lakh cusecs on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday, this was at 45,000 cusecs, surging seven-fold from being just 6,000 cusecs on Thursday. At 8 am on Sunday, water level at Mettur dam stood at 75.830 feet against the maximum reservoir level (MRL) of 120 feet. Outflow from the dam is at 1,000 cusecs.
Consequentially, water level at Mettur has risen by at least 5 feet, from being 70.05 feet on Saturday. As of Saturday, the available storage at Mettur was 36.92 TMC of 93.47 TMC.
According to officials, 1,40,000 cusecs of water has been released from Kabini and KRS dams in Karnataka and therefore, the inflow was expected to gradually increase from Sunday morning. Notably, on August 13 last year, water inflow had touched 2.3 lakh cusecs at Mettur and subsequently, outflow was increased from 1000 cusecs to 10,000.
Water inflow at Biligundlu in Dharmapuri district, the entry point of Cauvery into Tamil Nadu stands at 1.50 lakh cusecs as of Sunday afternoon. As water heavily gushes down the Hogenakkal falls in Dharmapuri, a flood warning that was issued to the neighbouring villages a few days ago, continues to be in place.
At Bhavani Sagar dam in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district, water level stood at 98.87 feet, as against the MRL of 105 feet as of Saturday evening.
On Saturday, as a result of the heavy rain in Vaigai and Mullaperiyar dam catchment areas, water level in Mullaperiyar dam had risen to 134.50 feet. According to reports, the Kerala government has written to Tamil Nadu government asking to release water from Mullaperiyar to Vaigai Dam in a phased manner as soon as the water level hits 136 feet. The Kerala government has also asked to be informed 24-hours prior to opening the shutters controlled by the Tamil Nadu government, keeping in mind the flooding in the state in 2018.