Residents return home as river starts receding

KOLHAPUR: The Panchganga's water level receded further to 41.1 ft on Tuesday. It stood at 42.9ft in the morning.

Rainfall of 14.11mm over the last 24 hours has failed to push the river level higher. The Panchganga was above danger level of 43ft for the last three days, but with the southwest monsoon taking a break, the water has started receding.

The river water is, however, still above the warning level. Rajaram weir located near the city reported a warning level of 39ft. Families in the area that were evacuated due to rising water levels have now returned to their homes.

The district disaster management cell has stated that between Monday and Tuesday, the district received only 14.11mm rainfall, which hardly contributed to the Panchganga river basin. Gaganbavda tehsil received 32mm rainfall, followed by tehsils such as Radhanagari and Shahuwadi, which reported 18.67mm and 16mm rainfall over the last 24 hours, respectively. The district received very low rainfall as compared to the earlier downpour.

The district has received rainfall of 1,251.31mm so far, which translates to 70.6% of the season's average of 1,772.39mm. There is still a month and a half left for the monsoon season to end, but most dams in the district are filled to capacity.

Radhanagari tehsil received 1,428.41mm rainfall from June 1 in the current season. This translates to 40.7% of its average rainfall of 3,501.6mm. The same tehsil in 2014 and 2015 had received less than 28% rainfall of its average and added water woes to two major cities -Kolhapur and Ichalkaranji - dependent on it for drinking water purposes. On the other hand, tehsils like Shirol stood at 117.71%, Shahuwadi at 118.78%, Karvir is 104.79% and Kagal was 149.06% received excess rain so far.

Though the rain has been reduced, the discharge from Almatti dam has further increased to 1,97,186 cusecs. The dam released 1,74,275 cusecs on Monday.

Meanwhile, the district administration has spent over Rs 70 crore gearing up for the Kanyagat Mahaparva. Funds are being used for road construction work, infrastructure development and construction of new ghats at Nrusinhwadi in Shirol tehsil. Most of the area had been under water for long as Nrusinhwadi is the point of confluence of the Krishna and Panchganga rivers and is frequently flooded. To bring down the river water, more water is being released from the Almatti dam so that the Panchganga river water near Nrusinhwadi will recede further and avoid any damage to work done for the event.

As of Tuesday, the Radhanagari dam was releasing 2,200 cusecs, while the Warna dam released 10,089 cusecs. The discharge from Koyna dam is being maintained at 18,635 cusecs. Koyna dam has 87.83TMC storage. The Warna dam is 91.92% full as of Tuesday. Of the total 31.62TMC capacity, Warna dam currently has 24.74 TMC water stock.