Vijayawada: Attempts by the water resources department to continue the works of Polavaram project’s diaphragm wall even during the Godavari floods proved futile. The works come to a halt with seepage of water and the river witnessing huge inflows from the upstream catchment areas of Polavaram in Eluru district.
The Polavaram project authorities planned to avoid any disruption to the ongoing works at the D-wall so as to expedite the completion of the project and set up the dewatering equipment with high capacity motors and even raised the upper cofferdam height to 44 from 42.5 metres to avoid floodwater’s entry to the work area in case of heavy floods in Godavari.
However, as the river started receiving huge inflows, seepage of water started from the cofferdams. “This stalled the works,” officials said.
The authorities planned to take up vibro compaction on the filled-up soil in the damaged portions of the D-wall to solidify it and make it firm. They realised that there was no chance of dewatering the work area, given the intensity of the floods.
Unless the issue of D-wall is addressed by either taking up parallel walls in the four damaged portions of the existing D-wall or by taking up a fresh D-wall for the whole length parallel to the existing D-wall, they cannot go ahead with works on the earth-cum-rock-fill dam, as it has to be a construction on the D-wall.
Now, the authorities are redrawing their plans to deal with the situation once the floodwater in the river recedes. They are focusing on paper work like attending to pending designs of some components of the project etc to get the mandatory approvals from the central water commission, the Polavaram project authority, the dam design review committee and other stakeholders.
Polavaram superintending engineer Narasimha Murthy said, “Now, we are focusing more on pending designs of the project and also to resume the D-wall works once the water level recedes in the river, by using the dewatering equipment, based on viability.”
