The earthwork of the Polavaram project will be stopped during the rainy season but the concrete work will continue, said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu here on Thursday.
Talking to the media after laying the foundation stone for the cofferdam and an iconic bridge across the spill channel of the dam, the Chief Minister said separate schedules had been chalked out for different seasons. The temperature of the rainy season was ideal for the concrete work.
He said 50% work would be completed on the diaphragm wall by the end of summer and 20 of the 42 gates had already been completed. Work was progressing as per schedule.
The Chief Minister said the cofferdam would handle a flood of 28 lakh cusecs, that was on the basis of a flood that occurred once in a 100 years. The cofferdam that would come up upstream the dam would be 2,340 metres and the one down stream would be 1,400 metres.
The iconic bridge would be 1,400 metres long. All agencies were employing 4,000 labour and using hundreds of pieces of equipment needed for completion of the project had been finalised, he said.
Though every effort was being made to complete the project on time, political parties were trying to criticise it, he said referring to AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s statements. Mr. Gandhi did not want the project to be completed. If the project was taken up by the Centre, it would take 20 years which would also result in huge cost escalation.
