Kaleshwaram project: Engineers finding reasons for sinking of 5 pillars, police probing sabotage angle

HYDERABAD: Officials have sounded a high alert and ordered a probe after five pillars of the Meddigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) have sunk into the River Godavari. Though the reasons for the incident are being explored technologically, a police complaint was also lodged to investigate into a suspected sabotage angle.

Medigadda Lakshmi Barrage Executive Engineer (EE) Tirupati Rao said that an enquiry was launched by the officials after a loud sound was heard at the Barrage in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district on Saturday.

"Soon after hearing the loud sound, officials at the control room were alerted and they began the exercise to ascertain what actually happened. Work is being done on the bridge all the time, as L&T, the contractor company that built the barrage, and Irrigation staff usually commence their work at night and the traffic on the bridge is also reduced.

It’s at that point in time that a loud noise was heard in the barrage", Tirupati Rao said.

The EE said that the sound was heard from the 20th pillar of the barrage at a distance of 300 metres from the Maharashtra side. The control room staff immediately alerted higher officials, who inspected the barrage and suspected that the 20th pillar on the Maharashtra side could have sunk a bit. Most of the workers from Maharashtra and Telangana commute on the barrage. "There is no big damage near the 20th pillar of the barrage and it will be rectified at the earliest," he said.

Tirupati Rao also said a police camp resided near the barrage and an inquiry would be launched by them to verify any conspiracy angle. He explained that Medigadda barrage withstood the highest recorded flood flow of 28 lakh cusecs last year, and that it was designed to withstand 28.25 lakh cusecs. The barrage was designed based on water flow data for the last 100 years, he added.

The EE said that Godavari received the highest flood on August 15, 1986, but last year’s flood was even worse. Still, water had safely passed through the barrage, he said, and added that the bridge was still under the control of L&T, which had to maintain it for five years. The complete details about the loud sound at the barrage would be known in the police investigation, Tirupati Rao said.