Singur Dam in Serious Danger, May Collapse Anytime

Hyderabad: The Singur dam, a drinking water lifeline for Hyderabad, may collapse “anytime” with a very real and serious threats of its embankments getting breached, resulting in huge loss of life, a state dam safety review panel (DSRP) report on the conditions at the M. Baga Reddy Singur Project has warned.

The Singur dam, designed to hold 29.91 tmc ft of water, and located upstream of Manjira reservoir, supplies around 6.96 tmc ft ft to meet drinking water needs of the city.

The panel, in its report, has said Singur faced a serious threat of breaching unless urgent repairs were taken up.

“A breach in the earthen embankment may happen anytime which will result in huge loss of water resource and loss of human life and properties downstream,” the report said indicating that if a breach did occur, the fallout could well have a severely adverse impact on the Manjira dam.

An inspection by members of the specially constituted DSRP in June found, among other serious issues, that the entire earthen bund had developed several vertical cracks which must be repaired immediately.

One of the reasons for the current state of the dam, the DSRP indicated, was the excessive storage of water at the dam beyond its rated capacity by the then BRS government in 2017 to provide water supply to the Mission Bhagiratha scheme.

While as per the original design of the dam the maximum permissible reservoir level was pegged at 517.8 metres, “the reservoir level is generally maintained at 522 metres and above in the past many years.” In 2017, the then BRS government in its orders on September 30, instructed that the reservoir must have a minimum level of 520.5 metres to supply water for Mission Bhagiratha scheme.

Leaving no room for any uncertainty on the need to cut down the storage in Singur, the report said “due to this reason (excessive storage), the project is getting handicapped and major areas like upstream revetment could not be repaired and maintained to the original designed slopes.” This, the report said, was endangering the safety of the embankment.

“If the disturbed upstream revetment is not rehabilitated urgently, a breach in the earthen embankment may happen anytime which will result in huge loss of water resource and loss of human life and properties downstream. More so, when important water resources projects namely Manjira barrage, Nizamsagar dam and multiple check dams present downstream on the Manjira river, the failure may thus become more critical,” the report said.

It recommended that the state government needed to sanction separate funds just for the repair and rehabilitation of the revetment, and with all the implications of a failure, that may be imminent, the SDRP declared that “the dam safety needs of Singur dam need to be immediately attended in a specified timeframe with utmost quality and also with professionalism of highest order.”

Incomplete Apron Work Likely To Pose Risk To Dam

Hyderabad: The Singur dam has a long history of neglect, including incomplete construction of the dam itself. While the DSRP did not dig into the history of why this is the case, it did point out in its report that as per official records, the project works that commenced during, were completed in 1989.

Though 36 years have passed, the DSRP, during its inspection of the dam in June, found that the apron that was to be provided on the downstream spillway as per the design drawing, was limited to just to two spillway blocks, with the work left incomplete for the rest of the spillway.

Though the report was polite in stating “the downstream apron portion of the spillway needs some attention,” it pointed out that the apron portion, where the water leaving the ski jump can have a negative impact, “possibly got damaged” and that a “huge amount of dislodged and fragmented rocky blocks are found dumped in the river bed, just downstream of the spillway.”

The report said during their inspection, the DSRP members “learnt that the designed apron was not provided at the immediate downstream of the spillway and the foundation rock was left exposed. As a result, it is possible that the bedrock in the apron portion of the spillway is getting affected and may pose a risk to the dam” and its related structures.

Senior irrigation department officials inspect damage to the earthen bund of the Singur dam on Friday.

Sandbags to Shield Singur Dam from Breach Risk

Hyderabad: Sand bags to prevent further erosion and protect the severely damaged earthen bund of the Singur dam will be the first line of defence to save the project, it was announced on Friday.

Irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy who reviewed the conditions at the Singur dam following a report from a state dam safety review panel (DSRP) that painted a grim picture with respect to the ability of the Singur project to survive any further, and warned that breaches of the earthen buds could happen anytime.

The minister said a team of senior irrigation officials were dispatched to assess Singur dam on Friday to recommend urgent measures to prevent mishaps. Uttam Kumar Reddy said to start with, the embankments should be strengthened with sandbags and that other reinforcements be placed wherever necessary.

With the monsoon active, he ordered that all dams, reservoirs, barrages and other water bodies to be closely monitored, stressing there should be no negligence and that there must be complete clarity on threat perception. He also said procedural or technical delays in implementing preventive measures would not be tolerated.