Polavaram Project Authority’s advice on Polavaram coffer dam helps save lives

Vijayawada: Polavaram Project Authority’s (PPA) advice to the AP government to maintain gaps in the construction of the cofferdam upstream Godavari river helped save the lives of thousands of tribals living in vulnerable areas in Godavari districts as River Godavari witnessed heavy floods.

In preparation for the construction of the main dam of Polavaram called Earth-Cum-Rock-Fill dam, the authorities constructed a cofferdam  upstream the Godavari river and are also constructing a similar dam downstream so that the main dam will be constructed in between both the cofferdams upstream and downstream by stopping the flow of water in the river’s course. A spillway is also in place to facilitate flow of water during diversion of the river’s course.

The authorities constructed the cofferdam in three stretches with one stretch measuring 300 metres length with an elevation of 22 metres, another with 1,700 metres with 30-35 metres elevation while the third one was spread over 300 metres length with an elevation of 15 metres. All the three stretches of the cofferdam have two gaps with 300 metres length.

As the Godavari river witnessed floods, the water level in the river rose to 27 metres height against the normal level of 22-24 metres, and therefore as many as 120 villages with a population of 24,000 became vulnerable for submergence.

However, the gushing waters in the river’s course escaped through the three gaps in the cofferdam while some quantum of water also passed on the spillway and as a result there was no possibility of a huge quantum of water getting stopped at the cofferdam. Water resources authorities said that in the event of no gaps in the cofferdam, a huge amount of floodwater in the river might have got stopped from flowing downstream and might have caused submergence of all the vulnerable villages causing a disaster-like situation with loss of life and properties.

Water resources authorities attribute credit to the PPA for advising to maintain gaps in the cofferdam for the ensuing flood season so that there may not be major trouble of submergence of vulnerable regions in agency areas in both the districts.

Polavaram project chief engineer D. Sudhakar Babu said, “Based on PPA’s advice, gaps have been left during the construction of the cofferdam upstream of Godavari river and these gaps helped the floodwater to flow downstream without a major hindrance through such gaps and reduced the intensity and area of submergence of vulnerable areas causing no major trouble to the people living in 120 villages.”

On the other hand, a section of irrigation experts slammed the previous Telugu Desam regime for failing to take up implementation of relief and rehabilitation to the project-affected people in vulnerable areas on a priority basis so that they could be in the safe zone in case the river witnessed floods.

However, the TD regime paid more attention to construction activity by taking up the construction of the cofferdam and spillway instead of construction of rehabilitation centres to the project-affected people and shifting them to such centres. At present, only 6,000 to 7,000 people had been shifted to rehab centres while the remaining project-affected people were still vulnerable for trouble in case the river witnessed floods.

Meanwhile, the YSRC government is going ahead with project execution plans.  

It is getting ready to call tenders through e-procurement for execution of the remaining works of the Polavaram project at the price level of 2015-16 by the end of August. The revised cost estimate of the project is Rs 55,548 crore at present and nearly 70 per cent of the project works have been completed so far.