Hyderabad: Cracks, which appeared on the two pillars of the seventh block (19 and 20) of the Medigadda barrage, have spread to four more pillars (15 to 18) in the sixth to eighth blocks on Wednesday. The barrage was constructed under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) in Mahadevpur mandal of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district.
According to sources, the pillars sank 7.5 feet deep in five days — five feet deep on Saturday, another one and a half feet by Tuesday and one more foot by Wednesday evening — spreading structural damage to six pillars from 15 to 20 of the seventh block of the barrage.
As the damage was spreading each day with the structure and deck parts of the pillars getting separated, especially that of the 20th pillar, the officials installed iron rods as support to prevent the pillar from totally collapsing.
An expert team led by National Dam Safety Authority chairman Anil Jain, which visited Medigadda Barrage on Tuesday, inspected the damage that occurred from sixth to eighth block for around two hours and collected the samples of the pillar walls that were damaged.
The villagers of the Laxmipuram alleged that at the time of construction of the barrage, the officials faced a lot of problems in laying the pillars of the fourth block as they did not get the proper depth of the sand present in the water. After a lot of hard work they were able to construct the fourth block.
“When the officials started constructing the remaining blocks like that of the fourth block they were informed that the foundation for the construction of pillars in the remaining blocks also must be done after a proper estimation and soil testing like that of the fourth block,” the villagers claimed.
“We also warned the officials saying that from the past several years onwards they were noticing that the depth of the soil varies from season to season as we go deep from Maharashtra to Telangana. But the officials focused only on how to overcome the problems they faced initially at the time of construction without thinking of the future problems. The curing of the pillars was also not done properly,” they said..
As the state government wanted the project to be completed as early as possible, the villagers claim the officials did not cure the pillars properly which might have led to the current damage to the barrage.
Experts opined that to estimate the damage correctly the officials must examine the blocks after emptying the barrage by lifting the water through Kannepalli pump house. Otherwise, they said, it would not be exactly possible to estimate damage that occurred to the project.
