HYDERABAD: More and more skeletons are tumbling out of the former BRS government’s closet over the sinking of a portion of the Medigadda Barrage, a key component of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme. The sinking of piers of Block 7 of the barrage on October 21, 2023, raised serious questions on the maintenance of the barrage, which the then government said was the responsibility of the contractor, in this case, Larsen & Toubro, who built the structure.
As reported in these columns earlier, the contract entered into with L&T by the irrigation department for the construction of the barrage included a brief that the company would have the responsibility for the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the barrage for five years from the date of completion of the project.
The first two of these five years also placed the responsibility for any defect liability on the construction company, with the balance of three years of responsibility devoted to the operation and maintenance of the barrage.
Although the contract includes this aspect, it is learnt that L&T had been contending with the irrigation department since May 2023 that a separate contract for operation and maintenance was required as the scope of O&M in the original contract was not defined.
“It is typical for any irrigation project to have an O&M contract but in this case, the irrigation department did not initiate any steps in this direction as the scope of work during operation and maintenance is different. It is not known why the department stayed silent on this issue,” a source familiar with the goings-on between the company and the department on this matter said.
Incidentally, the irrigation department is learnt to have entered into O&M contracts with Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd, which built the Sundilla Barrage, and Afcons Infrastructure, which built the Annaram Barrage only in July of 2023.
All three barrages are key to the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme, but the one at Medigadda is the acknowledged lynchpin.
While the former BRS government was quick to claim that O&M for Medigadda was with L&T at the time of the barrage’s partial collapse, what the irrigation department — which was then headed by K. Chandrashekar Rao who held the irrigation portfolio from 2019 onwards in his second term in office as chief minister of Telangana — never mentioned was that the company had written to the department twice, before Medigadda’s collapse, asking for conclusion of the O&M contract.
It is learnt that the company wrote twice to the irrigation department, once in May, and again in June 2023, asking for formally concluding the O&M contract. But as was with other issues at Medigadda with respect to reports of structural damages since 2019, there was no movement on this front from the irrigation department, sources said.
Asked if once the O&M responsibility already being mentioned in the original overall contract necessitated a separate contract, an irrigation engineer well-versed with the goings-on at the three Kaleshwaram barrages said if the irrigation department felt no additional contract was required for Medigadda, then the same logic should have been extended to Sundilla and Annaram barrages.
