A six-member high level team led by National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) chairman and chief engineer Anil Jain visited Lakshmi (Medigadda) Barrage of under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) on Tuesday. They are examining the barrage, where a small portion of the bridge ‘caved in’ on the night of October 21. The team includes directors S.K. Sharma, R. Thangamani and Rahul K. Singh, Superintending engineer Devender Rao and another unnamed deputy director from Krishna Godavari Basin Organisation. A report will be submitted on Monday.
Earlier, in a communication to Union Minister for Tourism, Culture and Development of Northeast Region G. Kishan Reddy, the NDSA director Rakesh Kumar Gautam informed that the team will interact with all the stakeholders including officers of the water resources department of Telangana and the agency involved in construction of the barrage where pillars 15 to 20 of the sixth to eighth blocks had reportedly ‘sunk’.
Prior to this, Mr. Reddy also the TS BJP president had written to the Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekawat about the incident at the barrage and about loud sounds heard from the underlying gates of the barrage. All 85 gates of the barrage are being opened and stored water to the tune of 10 TMC was being released downstream into the sea. Thus, the water saved for both drinking and irrigation purposes have gone waste, he said.
Last year, the Annaram and Kannepally pump houses of the Kaleswaram project submerged due to the floods and now this disaster of sinking of the pillars of the barrage has sent alarm bells ringing and these “continuous failures” need to be thoroughly investigated in the interest of public safety, said Mr. Reddy.
The Minister wanted the Centre to check whether foundation investigations were done and whether the ‘bore hole samples’ were taken to know how much compaction needs to be done before the project designs of this barrage were made. River cross section studies at both pre and post monsoon times to study the upstream and downstream cross sections should be checked.
Model studies with ground realities should be done and corrected any discrepancies. The barrage piers seemed to have failed because the soil is still settling and not treated properly. “This indicates that it is a fit case of foundation inspection failure,” he observed The team should also check the designs done by the agency concerned and fix responsibility, he added.
