US, Canada experts to take stock of Polavaram project

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu visited the Polavaram dam site last week to assess the condition of the project works.

The Central government has roped in a team of irrigation experts from the USA and Canada to study the extensive damages caused to the Polavaram major irrigation project being built on the Godavari river in Andhra Pradesh and suggest remedial measures, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The experts are USA’ David B Paul and Gias Franco de Cisco and Canada’s Richard Donnelly and Seas Hinsberger, who landed in New Delhi on Thursday and would be proceeding to Polavaram dam site at Ramayyapet in Eluru district on June 29, after holding a series of talks with the officials of the Union ministry of Jal Sakthi and the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA).

They will examine the dam’s management, security, civil engineering, and hydraulic structures. “The experts will be examining the project works in all angles and evaluate the situation. They will submit a report to the PPA suggesting remedial measures,” state irrigation minister Nimmala Rama Naidu told reporters after taking charge in his chambers in the state secretariat on Tuesday.

Paul is an expert in dam security and management and Donnelly is specialist in hydraulic constructions and water management. While Franco de Cisco is an expert in structural engineering of dams, Hinsberger has two-and-a-half decades of experience in geotechnical engineering and irrigation management, a senior official of the state irrigation department said on the condition of anonymity.

“The irrigation experts will visit the project every three months until its completion and guide the engineers here to overcome technical problems in the execution of the project,” the official said.

The development comes days after Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu visited Polavaram project site on June 17 and inspected the project works. He appealed to the Centre to facilitate the visit of international experts to study the structural deficiencies in the project works in the last five years.

After his visit, Naidu told reporters that during his earlier stint between 2014 and 2019, his government had completed more than 70% of the project works. “The diaphragm wall was built at a cost of ₹480 crore to enable construction of earth-cum-rock fill dam and the upper and lower cofferdams were also under construction. But, soon after Jagan assumed charge in May 2019, he changed the contractors and even workers in the name of reverse tendering, which had disrupted progress,” he alleged.

As a result, the diaphragm wall suffered 35% damage in the 2020 floods, due to non-completion of the cofferdam. “Now, officials say it requires ₹446 crore to repair the diaphragm wall and there is no guarantee that it would withstand floods, as there are seepages in cofferdam. If we have to build another diaphragm wall parallelly, we need to spend ₹990 crore,” the chief minister said.

The irrigation department official quoted above said the international experts would make an assessment on whether the diaphragm wall could be repaired or should be reconstructed. “We shall speed up the project work and ensure to complete it on time with the help of this expert team,” he said.

The multi-purpose Polavaram project, is intended for a gross irrigation potential of 4,36,825 hectares. The project also envisages generation of 960MW of hydro power, drinking water supply to a population of 2.85 million in 611 villages and diversion of 80 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of water to the Krishna river basin.

Read more news like this on HindustanTimes.com