As the installation of permanent crest gate no. 19 of the Tungabhadra reservoir, which was washed away last Saturday after its chain link broke, will take time, the Tungabhadra Board officials resumed the work on installing a temporary stop-lock gate on Friday.
On Thursday, attempts to fix a temporary stop-lock gate brought from the JSW steel plant at Toranagallu in Ballari district ran into trouble. On Friday morning, work to fix the gate resumed. A team of experts headed by hydro-mechanical engineer N. Kannaiah Naidu from Hyderabad were seen fixing the beams using cranes on the reservoir. Officials said that fixing the massive gate amid the heavy current was a challenge.
Nearly 100 workers were engaged in the repair work. The Karnataka State Disaster Response Force and police personnel were deployed at the dam site.
The reservoir was full to the brim at Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 1,633 ft holding a total storage capacity of 105.788 tmcft when the crest gate no. 19 was washed away. The dam authorities immodestly raised the remaining 23 gates to increase the spillway discharge. Since many experts held that fixing the broken gate could be possible only after the reservoir was half-emptied, the spillway discharge was subsequently increased up to 1.40 lakh cusecs.
On Friday morning, the reservoir level was brought down to 1,623.79 ft with storage of 72.607 tmcft of water. The outflow was further decreased from 1.1 lakh cusecs to 86,310 cusecs to facilitate the repair work. The reservoir lost around 33 tmcft of water in the last six days.
Restrictions to media
Considering the sensitivity of the issue and the complexities involved in fixing the damaged gate, the authorities declared the entire Tungabhadra reservoir premises a restricted area. Sources in the Irrigation Central Zone (Munirabad) of Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Ltd. said that Mr. Naidu was particular in keeping the media away from the repair work.
He was against making videos of the gate-installation work by media persons even from a distance as he held that the slightest mistake could lead to failure and the media might make it a major issue, sources said. Upon his insistence, the media was made to vacate from the vicinity of the reservoir.
