Medigadda barrage useless unless fully rehabilitated: National Dam Safety Authority to Telangana Government
New Delhi, November 3
The National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) has found that the Medigadda Barrage in Telangana has been severely compromised, rendering it useless unless fully rehabilitated.
The NDSA has concluded its investigation into the reasons behind the sinking of the piers of barrage.
A six-member committee led by the Member (Disaster & Resilience) of NDSA visited the site from October 23 to 25 to conduct a thorough examination of the reasons for the sinking of the piers of the Medigadda Barrage.
In a letter to the Telangana chief secretary, NDSA member Sanjay Kumar Sibal said the barrage under the present condition is “rendered useless until fully rehabilitated”.
The committee held discussions with the Engineer-in-Chief (General) of the Telangana Irrigation and CAD Department on October 23, inspected the Medigadda Barrage on October 24, and conducted final discussions with various stakeholders, including L&T Infra Ltd., on October 25 in Hyderabad.
The letter said the Irrigation and Command Area Development (CAD) Department did not provide critical data and inputs required by the NDSA committee, as mandated by the Dam Safety Act 2021.
This includes “instrumentation data, pre-monsoon and post-monsoon inspection reports, completion reports, quality control reports, and more. As per the Dam Safety Act 2021, the I & CAD Department (dam owner) cannot deny the inputs sought by NDSA”.
The NDSA said the sinking of the piers was attributed to a combination of problems, including planning, design, quality control, and operation and maintenance issues.
“There are deficiencies in the project planning and design as well. The barrage has been designed as a floating structure but constructed as a rigid structure. The contiguous secant pile type cut-offs adopted by the project authorities were taken up to rock both at upstream and downstream of the barrage. This has changed the structure behaviour from the designed,” it said.
The NDSA also claimed that the dam owners have not inspected or maintained the cement concrete blocks or launching aprons since the commissioning of the barrage in 2019-20.
“In this regard, this maintenance deficiency of the dam owners has progressively weakened the barrage, leading to its failure. This is a significant lapse on the operation and maintenance front,” it said.
The Telangana state authorities were urged to take the findings of the committee seriously and implement measures to remedy the situation.
A detailed investigation was sought to be conducted to determine the exact causes of the failure and the NDSA should be informed of the outcomes and proposed rehabilitation measures.
