Jal Shakti Ministry to conduct probe on sinking of part of Lakshmi Barrage at Medigadda of KLIP in Telangana

A high-level expert committee from the Union Jal Shakti Ministry will conduct a probe on the sinking of a portion of the Lakshmi Barrage at Medigadda of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP).

The committee will probe into the partial sinking of the KLIP barrage. The incident led to temporary closure of the bridge of the barrage across Godavari River that links Telangana with Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district.

National Dam Safety Authority chairman Anil Jain will be heading the six-member committee and it will hold a review meeting with state officials in Hyderabad later.

The committee will probe the reasons for the sinking of the piers of the barrage of the Kaleshwaram project and it will visit the barrage in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district.

The Centre has asked the committee to submit a report after inspecting the barrage and interacting with all stakeholders. As per an order of the Ministry, pillars numbering 15 to 20 of the sixth to eighth blocks of the barrage caved in two days ago after pillar number 20 of Block 7 of the barrage had partially sunk.

The team has been directed to interact with the officials concerned of the state government and the agency involved in the construction of the barrage.

The Medigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram Project is 1.6 km-long and the portion which partially sunk is only 356 meters from Maharashtra.

The KLIP authorities have started letting out stored water by opening about 22 of the total 85 gates of the barrage to facilitate the technical assessment of the exact cause and damage.

However, the project engineers said there was no threat to the barrage and repairs will be carried out after assessing the damage.