Kaleshwaram Barrages – State to Seek Final Report From NDSA at Meeting Today

Hyderabad: A crucial meeting on the Kaleshwaram project and the progress and completion of monsoon protection works of the project’s barrages at Sundilla, Annaram, and Medigadda is scheduled for Friday where the state government is expected to press for final reports from the investigation agencies, as well as the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) on the way forward for permanent protection measures at the barrages.

Officials said irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy will chair the meeting where representatives from the NDSA, the Central Power and Water Research Station (CPWRS), Pune, Central Soil and Materials Research Station (CSMRS), Delhi, with irrigation department officials to attending the meeting.

The state government had previously urged the NDSA to submit its final report, and this issue has assumed urgency with the Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose-led Commission of Inquiry seeking the final report from the Authority. It may be recalled that the inquiry commission has already met with representatives of the agencies that built the barrages, and current and retired irrigation department engineers, and sought affidavits from them, and reports from the three agencies.

The state government had made it clear multiple time that it would follow the advice from the NDSA and ensured that NDSA’s interim recommendations for monsoon flood protection at the barrages were implemented by Navayuga, Afcons, and L&T which built the Sundilla, Annaram, and Medigadda barrages respectively.

While the NDSA’s final report is being waited for with anticipation by officials, and the government, final reports from CPWRS which studied the state of affairs at Sundilla and Annaram barrage, and CSMRS which was given the task to study the Medigadda barrage – which was the worst affected among the three barrages – are expected to throw more light at the actual state of the structures at the barrages.