Hyderabad: Telangana’s K. Chandrashekar Rao government has called the National Dam Safety Authority’s report highlighting problems in the state’s flagship Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) “unsubstantiated and hasty”. This comes days after the central regulatory body found planning, design, and quality flaws after inspecting the six piers of Medigadda Barrage, which had developed cracks and partially sank on the night of 21 October.
Significantly, the KLIP on the Godavari river is a pet project of Telangana Chief Minister KCR, whose Bharat Rashtra Samithi party has been showcasing it as its major achievement since it was commissioned in June 2019. Medigadda, also known as Laxmi Barrage, has 85 gates and has a holding capacity of 16 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet water.
In a letter and report dated 1 November and addressed to Rajat Kumar, Telangana irrigation special chief secretary, Sanjay Kumar Sibal, chairman (additional charge) of NDSA and member (design and research) of Central Water Commission, said there were cracks and other kinds of damage to the Medigadda Barrage piers.
The structure, in its present condition, is “rendered useless until fully rehabilitated”, the report, based on an NDSA committee’s visit to the site and consultations with state irrigation officials from 23-25 October, said.
The report was made public Friday.
In its response to the report Saturday, the Telangana government has said that “many of the (findings, comments, suggestions) are either unsubstantiated or made without a full appreciation of the facts”.
“We are surprised that conclusions have been made about the causes of (the) failure of Laxmi barrage without any investigative work by the committee. As you are aware, the correct causes can be determined only after proper inspection of the foundation and other related structures, which are currently underwater,” the response said.
Refuting the NDSA claims that his department has not submitted some documents for verification, Kumar said that 17 of the 20 documents that were asked for were sent to the committee through email on 29 October. The rest was sent on 1 November, Kumar added.
“Without checking these details, submissions, a comprehensive indictment of the Kaleshwaram project was communicated to us in a hasty manner,” the senior IAS officer said.
The letter, of which ThePrint has a copy, said a cofferdam — an enclosure built within a body of water to allow the enclosed area to be drained — is currently under construction “to divert water and facilitate the thorough inspection of the affected portions of the barrage”.
“Only once this investigative work is completed, we would be able to assess the correct reasons for the sinking of the piers in the barrage. As such at this point of time, we are unable to agree to your conclusions,” Kumar said.
The BRS is vying for a third straight term in Telangana in the 30 November assembly polls, and the Medigadda barrage incident, along with water seepages in two other KLIP barrages — Annaram and Sundilla — has given opposition parties fresh ammunition to relaunch its corruption allegations against the party and Chief Minister KCR.
After visiting Medigadda Thursday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the barrage was “part of the corruption-ridden Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme in Telangana”. He also alleged that cracks have appeared on multiple pillars because of “shoddy construction”.
While the Telangana Congress has asked for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), rival Bharatiya Janata Party led by its Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay has demanded that the losses to the exchequer “should be recovered from K. Chandrashekar Rao”.
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‘Engineering marvel, raised with stringent quality checks’
While the chief minister has yet to comment on the report, the state government is defending the project by calling it an “engineering marvel”.
In his response to the NDSA report, Kumar said “stringent quality control checks were conducted” during the construction of Medigadda and annexed test reports to the letter to claim that the regulatory body’s comments “related to poor quality control during project execution are unsubstantiated”.
The state government also objected to the body’s comments on Annaram and Sundilla barrages”, calling them “unsubstantiated as the expert committee did not even visit the two barrages”. It, however, added that “all necessary measures are being taken” to fully comply with the Dam Safety Act of 2021.
The official also said that KLIP had the approval of the Union Jal Shakti Ministry’s Technical Advisory Committee, given in June 2018 after examining the KCR government’s hydrology, costs, irrigation planning, and environmental clearances for the project.
“The then Chairman of the Central Water Commission Masood Hussain visited the project site in April 2018. He appreciated (the) Telangana government for (the) speedy execution of work and said that they had not seen any irrigation project of such magnitude and described the project as an ‘engineering marvel,” Kumar said in his letter, adding that his department was “known for excellence and world-renowned structures like Nizam Sagar, Nagarjuna Sagar, Srisailam, Pochampad etc projects, the pride of the nation.”
Significantly, while the Nizam Sagar Dam was constructed under Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, the remaining projects mentioned in the letter — Nagarjuna Sagar, the Srisailam Dam, and Pochampadu, (also known as Sriram Sagar Project) — were all undertaken in formerly undivided Andhra Pradesh between the 50s and 80s.
According to Kumar, the KLIP has had a tremendous positive impact on the economy and ecology of Telangana.
“Agriculture production increased by 300 percent. The average groundwater level has increased by over seven metres due to (the) supply of surface water for irrigation and recharging of underground aquifers. A tremendous growth is seen in (the) fisheries and tourism sectors,” he said in the letter, adding that the overall positive impact of the project “has resulted in Telangana leading in India with highest per capita income of Rs 3.17 lakh, up from about Rs 1.28 lakh at the time of state’s formation”.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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