Hyderabad, April 13: With the bitter experience of flash floods that wreaked havoc in Kurnool district in October last year, the irrigation department is gearing up for the monsoon season.
It has established a control room in the State capital to monitor all the major and medium dams in the State. A mock drill will be performed on April 22 to test how the officials are prepared to face any emergency and working of dams’ mechanism.
Major Irrigation Minister P Lakshmaiah, talking with mediapersons here today after a review meeting with the officials of his department, said that an amount of about Rs 122 crore was being spent on the repairs of the flood gates, flood banks and on the canals. Of that, Rs 112 crore was earmarked for permanent repairs and Rs 9.80 crore for emergency repairs.
Apart from this, Rs 12 crore was spent on repairs to the Nagarjunasagar dam and its security arrangements were taken up at a cost of Rs 11.5 crore.
The dams’ safety and security was being taken up according to the recommendations of the State-level committee and according to the guidelines of the International Commission for Safety of Major Dams, Lakshmaiah said.
He said that 16 major projects _ Srisailam, Sriram Sagar, Nagarjuna Sagar, Somasila, Nizam Sagar, Penna- Ahobilam, Dowleswaram, Gotta Barrage, Jurala, Lower Manair, Singur, Yeleru Reservoir, Mid-Penna, Kadem, Kandaleru and Palar _ were taken up in the major dams category and repair works were being taken up. Apart from them, 80 medium- scale dams would also be repaired before the onset of the monsoon, the minister said.
Lakshmaiah said that a Statelevel dam safety inspection team was established and it would go round the projects and check their conditions.
Of the 80 medium-scale dams, 46 have gates and irrigation officials are checking the gates’ operating conditions. As far as the minor irrigation projects were concerned, about 1,200 tanks had been repaired in the last three years and the repair of about 200 tanks would be taken up this year, the minister said. The control room, which will function from the State capital, will record real-time inflow into the dams. Irrigation officials will be trained with the help of the Water and Land Management Training and Research Institute (WALAMTARI).
A separate cell has been established under the supervision of superintending engineer who would look after the designs, plans, execution and monitoring of irrigation projects.
–Agencies