Hyderabad: The ongoing judicial probe into the construction of the Medigadda barrage, and the two others at Annaram and Sundilla, part of the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme, is throwing up more skeletons from the project’s cupboard, with officials admitting to possible serious violations in planning, design and construction sequences and protocols.
Officials from the State Dam Safety Organisation (SDSO) on Friday informed Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, heading the judicial commission of inquiry, that construction of the barrages was on even as model studies were being conducted, and that the SDSO did not receive monsoon reports about the barrage sites before their construction.
The SDSO officials were responding to questions from Justice Ghose who grilled them. At times, the officials did not have clear responses to the questions.
Asked if the required dam safety procedures were followed at the barrages, SDSO official Pramila did not provide a clear response. To a question on whether pre- and post-monsoon reports were received and who prepared these reports, she responded saying such reports were not received before beginning of the construction of the barrages.
SDSO officials, along with officials from the Central Designs Organisation (CDO) – both wings of the state irrigation department — also informed the commission that they did not receive any report either before, or after the subsidence of part of the Medigadda barrage as field level officials did not submit them.
The irrigation officials who were questioned on Friday also admitted that not all the model studies were completed before the construction of the barrages began. They informed Justice Ghose that model studies were being conducted even as the construction process was on.
The officials also said that once the model studies were completed, the government was recommended to make changes in the design of the baffle blocks – designed to dissipate energy when water is released. They also admitted that the problems at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla barrages were the result of storing water and not lifting their gates as required even during high floods and this was a result of negligence by field level officers at the barrages.
