The barrages fall under the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project, executed under the previous government led by BRS chief K Chandrashekar Rao.
The Medigadda (Lakshmi) Barrage.
The National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) has constituted a five-member expert committee to examine and study the causes leading to the distress of the Medigadda, Annaram, and Sundilla barrages.
The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti-monitored five-member committee is headed by J Chandrasekhar Iyer, the former chairman of the Central Water Commission (CWC).
It also includes the NDSA Director (Technical Wing) Amitabh Meena, who has been appointed its secretary.
The committee also comprises experts from several fields. They include UC Vidyarthi, a scientist at CSMRS Delhi; R Patil, a scientist at CWPRS Pune; Shiva Kumar Sharma, BCD at CWC Delhi; and Rahul Kumar Singh, the director for disaster and resilience at the NDSA.
The authority has set a deadline for the committee, tasking it to submit a comprehensive report within four months.
All three barrages fall under the much-touted Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP), which was executed under the previous government led by BRS chief and former chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
According to the order copy, accessed by South First, the committee is expected to examine the designs, drawings, data, tests, and site investigation report of the three barrages from every conceivable angle.
It has also been tasked with holding discussions with concerned government and private stakeholders and agencies, which were responsible for the construction, operation, and management of the three barrages.
Apart from identifying the causes of cracks and other challenges, the committee is also expected to recommend measures and studies to address the damages in the three barrages. It will also suggest actions to prevent the recurrence of such issues.
There is no clarity over when the committee will arrive to inspect the three barrages. However, reports suggest the panel might visit in the coming week.
An NDSA team visited the barrage in October last year, immediately after the damages became evident.
On 13 February, Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, his Cabinet colleagues, and MLAs visited the Medigadda (Lakshmi) barrage, whose piers had “sunk” last year.
According to the NDSA, “pillars numbered 15 to 20 of the sixth to eighth blocks of the Medigadda (Laxmi) barrage of the Kaleshwaram project” had reportedly sunk on the night of 21 October last year. The BRS government was in power then.
When South First visited the barrage as a part of a media tour, it found that the Vigilance Department had noted the maintenance checks had not been conducted from the time of its inauguration in 2019 till 2024.
Secondly, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), the construction partner for the KLIS, was notified for nearly three years — 2020, 2021, and 2022 — about the damages to the Medigadda barrage.
A similar problem, including “sand erosion”, was reported to have occurred at the Annaram (Saraswati) barrage in the Jaishankar Bhupalpally district and the Sundilla (Parvathi) barrage.
However, the authorities dismissed the leakage as “seepage”, which they said was normal in permeable foundations.
A part of the KLIP, Annaram was constructed by Afcons Infrastructure Limited and Sundilla by Navayuga Engineering Company Limited.
Telangana Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy, while talking to reporters on Friday, 1 March, gave assurances that the government was aware of the condition of the Medigadda barrage and would not delay until the monsoon arrived. “The pending works will be completed before that,” he said.
The minister also stated that the Congress government had stopped a pending payment of ₹400 crore to the L&T.
Hitting out at the Opposition BRS, the Congress leader attributed the faults in Medigadda to the then government’s focus on commissions rather than public welfare.
He added that the essential documents such as sectional drawings of the Medigadda structure and quality control reports were missing.
“The Congress government is only accountable for actions taken after 7 December, 2023,” the minister claimed.
Uttam Kumar, criticising KCR, said that he had allegedly neglected issues concerning the Medigadda barrage from 21 October, 2023, until the end of the election.
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