Tehri Hydro Power Development Corporation has agreed to cooperate with Telangana government and extend the technical know-how required for the construction of rock-fill dam for Narlapur reservoir as part of the Palamuru-Rangareddy lift irrigation scheme.
Executive Director of THPDC Rajeev Vaishnoi, who visited the Palamuru-Rangareddy project works on Wednesday had a meeting with the project engineers and those of the Irrigation Department here on Thursday.
He asked the Telangana State Irrigation Department here to send a delegation to Tehri dam for studying the aspects of rock-fill dam construction.
Mr. Vaishnoi explained that the construction of Tehri dam was taken up against large-scale apprehensions over the safety of the dam expressed by the environmentalist and the rock-fill dam was designed with the experts from the then Soviet Union even to withstand earthquakes measuring up the magnitude of 10 on the Richter Scale, he added.
Complimenting the State government for taking up huge lift irrigation projects such as Palamuru-Rangareddy and Kaleshwaram, Mr. Vaishnoi said lifting of water was the only solution for irrigation in Telangana. He also commended the redesigning of the two projects to derive maximum benefits.
Officer on Special Duty in CMO Sridhar Rao Deshpande, Chief Engineer of Palamuru-Rangareddy project V. Ramesh, Chief Engineer of Central Designs Organisation T. Srinivas and others participated in the meeting.
Meanwhile, at the two-day International Dam Safety Conference held at Bhubaneshwar on February 13 and 14 and the National Committee on Dam Safety held there on February 12, the Irrigation Department of Telangana submitted proposal for dam safety improvement for 33 major and medium projects in the State with an estimated cost of ₹665 crore.
Superintending Engineer in Central Designs Organisation K. Chandrasekhar and Executive Engineer, who attended the two conferences from Telangana, explained the need for dam safety improvement for the 33 projects under the second phase of World Bank-assisted Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP).
They stated that they had appraised the pre and post-monsoon reports of 2018-19 water year and the health status reports of dams in the deliberations at the two conferences. They also informed the Central Water Commission, that would implement DRIP, that emergency action plan of Nagarjunasagar project has also been prepared.
