Sambalpur: The Rs 369 crore Additional spillway project to enhance the flood water discharge capacity of Hirakud dam, is hanging in balance.
The project has yet to make any progress after the Tata Projects and AGE Group, Turkey, which had been entrusted to carry out the construction work, backed out midway.
The Tata Projects and Age Group, had begun the work on the additional spillway, in January in 2019. They began the excavation work for the spillway and excavated around 4 lakh cubic meter soil.
However, in February 2020, TATA Projects and its partner AGE Group suddenly backed out from the project citing the reason that the government was delaying handing over the site for construction work. After that no progress has been made on the project.
Executive Engineer of Spillway Division, Hirakud Dam Project, Himansu Mishra said, after the withdrawal of Tata Project and Age Group, a proposal was sent to the government for floating fresh tender for the spillway project.
A fresh tender for the execution of the spillway project will be floated after the proposal is approved by the government.
He said there are also some legal issues which have to be resolved before the fresh tender for the spillway project is floated.
Official sources said, the length of the proposed additional spillway dam will be 91 meters and it will have five sluice gates.
The proposed spillway channel originates from near the Gandhi Minar on the left dyke of Hirakud Dam reservoir and meet the river Mahanadi near the Jawahar Udyan.
The Central Water Commission (CWC) recommended enhancing the flood water discharge capacity of the dam, following which an additional spillway for the Hirakud Dam was proposed.
The meteorological change, climate change and probable maximum flood were looked into while the decision to enhance the flood water discharge capacity was taken.
Currently, there are 98 gates including 64 sluice gates and 34 crest gates to release the flood water from the Hirakud dam.
Around 15 lakh Cusec water is released through the 98 gates at a time now. However, with the construction of the additional spillway, the water discharge capacity of the Hirakud Dam will increase to 18 lakh Cusec.
UNI