Engineers call for mitigation measures to safeguard Kaleshwaram project

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Retired Engineers Association (TREA) on Friday called for several mitigation measures to prevent a recurrence of submergence of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme pump houses and to keep the Kadam dam safe from any future heavy flood event that could yet again allow River Godavari to rampage through the projects.

TREA, in a statement after a meeting of its members, said that the pumping stations of the Kaleshwaram projects will require protection walls around them to prevent river water from entering them in the future.

It said the flood banks at the Annaram barrage, part of the Kaleshwaram project, must be raised, and the government should acquire land that submerges every time the river is in flood.

The Association further said that there was a need to study the ‘backwater effect’ arising from the confluence of Godavari and Pranahita rivers. “The flooding this time was a result of this effect,” the Association general secretary M. Shayam Prasad Reddy told Deccan Chronicle.

He said though the project planners had taken into account the 1986 floods of Godavari, the impact of the water from the Pranahita river joining the Godavari during heavy rain events, and the consequent rise in backwater levels were not taken into account as such an event had not occurred in the past.

With respect to the near threat to the Kadam dam, the Association said the project requires additional discharge capability on its left flank. It may be recalled that though the water was let out of the left canal of the dam, the canal had breached as the water allowed to go through the canal was around 900 cusecs, compared to the normal discharge that would see between 400 and 450 cusecs of water run the canal.

It also said the government must immediately take up the construction of the proposed Kuptee reservoir which could act as a balancing reservoir in the event of heavy inflows coming to Kadam.

The meeting was attended among others by TREA president G. Damodar Reddy, members Venkat Rama Rao, Ananta Ramulu, Chandramouli, MV Ranga Reddy, Tanneer Venkatesham, and Ziauddin, all senior retired engineers.