Hyderabad: The stricken Block 7 of the Medigadda barrage, the epicentre of all the troubles and problems surrounding the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme (KLIS), should be rebuilt, the Justice P.C. Ghose commission of inquiry has recommended in its report to the government. The commission made it clear that the appropriate and required geotechnical studies should be carried out before the restoration work can be taken up.
The commission, which was mandated to inquire into irregularities in the construction of the Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages, reconfirmed the earlier findings of the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) of design faults at all the three barrages as the cause for the breaking of piers and damage to Block 7 at Medigadda, and seepages from under the foundations of Annaram and Sundilla barrages. Its report was presented to the Assembly on Sunday
The commission suggested that a ‘design review board’ should be set up which can look at repair/restoration designs at the three barrages and once all the required repairs are completed, the barrages must be inspected by the NDSA before being put to use again.
Design problems at the barrages were flagged not just by the NDSA and now by the Justice Ghose commission of inquiry report but also by the Vigilance & Enforcement Wing which in its report too attributed the problems to faulty and poor designs.
In what may be viewed as a flagrant violation of all established norms and in the rush to complete the construction of barrages within three years, the commission’s report also flagged serious violations in how the construction was taken up even before the required model studies for the three barrages were conducted.
It said the Telangana State Engineering Research Laboratories (TSERL) which was to conduct model studies for the barrages had to work with inadequate geotechnical data and incomplete designs to start with. The report said for the Medigadda barrage the model study report was ready only in May 2017, while for Annaram and Sundilla barrages, the reports were ready in April 2017.
The commission noted in its report that execution of work at the barrages began much before as per the engineer-in-chief of the Ramagundam irrigation circle who informed the commission in his evidence that work on the barrages began in November 2016, five months before the model study reports were ready for Annaram and Sundilla and five months before work began on the Medigadda barrage.
