No flood threat to new AP capital: Irrigation Minister
Report said Tullur mandal may be inundated
By : u. sudhakar reddy
Update: 2014-11-13 02:07 GMT
Hyderabad: Allaying the fears of heavy flood and dam breakage threat to the proposed capital area of Andhra Pradesh, minister for irrigation Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao said river bunds will be constructed in keeping with national standards.
Report by the AP State Remote Sensing Application Centre of Department of Planning on possible inundation due to Nagarjunasagar Dam and Prakasham barrage break revealed that Tullur mandal will be inundated.
When asked about APSRSAC dam and barrage break report, Mr Uma Maheswara Rao said, “The other side in Krishna district is a low lying area and flooding occurs in Ibrahimpatnam and Kanchikacherla mandals. Tullur is on the left bank, Guntur side and has never faced floods in its history. When we are building a world class capital we will take all safety measures.”
APSRSAC claimed that dam break analysis is attempted to map the probable inundation areas in the downstream of dams and barrage.
“This analysis is made based on volume of inflow and outflow, characteristics of each dam, contour, drainage, slope and historical data. The extent of land use and land cover classes likely to be damaged in the event of dam break is also mapped,” says the report.
However, so far there has been no dam breakage incident in AP except a dam failure in Kaddam Project in Adilabad district in 1958.
Kaila Dam, Gujarat, Kodaganar Dam, Tamil Nadu, Machhu II (Irrigation Scheme) Dam, Gujarat, and Nanaksagar Dam, Punjab, India are some of the instances of dam failure.
Dam breaks happen not only due to earthquakes but also due to extreme heavy rainfall continuously for a long duration and instant flooding beyond the capacity of the dam and sabotage activities. State government has appointed SPF personnel for dam safety.
In 2009 October, heavy floods occurred, isolating 350 villages along the Krishna river and leaving millions homeless and several riverfront villages marooned in this mega flood.
Another flood threat for Guntur is Kondaveetivaagu flows almost every year in August, September, November and December.
As per irrigation officials, majority villages in Tulluru mandal and several villages in Amaravati mandal faced inundation threat from Kondaveetivaagu in the past.