The plugging of a major breach to the Yeleru canal at Golugondapeta has been going on a war-footing and will be completed in a week to 10 days.
The revetment of the canal was washed away for 60-70 metres and work has been going on for a few days now. Though the Yeleru reservoir is full to the brim with 26 tmc feet of storage, water is not being drawn from it owing to the breach. “It was a major breach and about Rs.30 lakh to Rs.40 lakh has to be spent on totally restoring it,” Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana who inspected the work on Friday told The Hindu . He inspected a total of six breaches to the canal along its 156-km course. Apart from the Golugondapeta breach, the others occurred at the super passage at 27th km at Lankelapalem, two at Sarabhavaram, Bojjannakonda and Tallapalem.
At the Tandava aqueduct, farmers represented to him that the height of the bund be increased and flood water be diverted into the Tandava river by a regulator. The Commissioner told them that it could not be taken up in the present plugging of the breach. Mr. Satyanarayana said the Godavari pumping scheme at Kateru would not pose any problem for drinking water supply till next year. He said proposals would be sent for increasing the storage capacity of the Meghadrigedda and Mudarsarlova reservoirs.
On meeting the water demand in the absence of supply from the Yeleru canal, officials said about 4-5 mgd being drawn from the canal was being used for the Gajuwaka area and the remaining demand was being met from the Meghadrigedda reservoir. Since the other reservoirs were also full, the supply position was comfortable, they said.
Additional Commissioner (Projects) K. Ramesh, Chief Engineer B. Jayarami Reddy, Superintending Engineer (Water Supply) V.Chandraiah, Executive Engineer Satyanarayana Raju, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant General Manager M.V. Rao, its DGM (Water Supply) Ramanujam and Deputy Manager Sivaramakrishna accompanied the officials.
