Work on the Polavaram national project, which was suspended from August 12 to August 20 following heavy rains and flood in the River Godavari, resumed on Tuesday.
At Polavaram, the Godavari received 21 lakh cusecs flood, and at present, it was 19 lakh cusecs.
Brisk progress
Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL), which is taking up project works, suspended them keeping in mind the safety of about 2,500 workers, technicians and other staff hailing from West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and other States.
Shuttering, deck sheeting, 500 square metres of works are under progress on the spillway. Similarly, 300 metres of shuttering, girders and 1,000 tonnes of steel cutting for deck sheeting have been completed in the non-flow block. Safety gear has been provided to workers and two boats with expert swimmers have been kept at the ready, project in-charge A. Satish Babu said.
So far, 44 girders have been set up in 11 blocks. The Stage government, the Water Resources Department and MEIL had prepared an action plan in advance to continue works in adverse conditions also, the project in-charge said in a release.
“As there was only flood without rainfall, we resumed girder works,” said Polavaram Project Superintendent Engineering (SE) Medapati Nagireddy. “We will speed up the works if the flood comes down further,” he added.
As regards strengthening of the necklace bund at Polavaram village, the Irrigation Department has written to the government, seeking constitution of a technical committee.
“Once the situation improves, experts and the technical committee are likely to visit the bund and suggest measures for strengthening it. The base of the bund has eroded due to floods in the last two years. We are planning to take up permanent measures to solve the problem once and for all ,” Mr. Nagireddy said.
Project works were affected during the lockdown period after workers returned to their native places.
Irrigation, revenue and police officials visited the site and reviewed the flood situation with the authorities concerned.
Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who undertook an aerial survey of the site recently, directed the officials to take measures to complete the project as per schedule.
