Sarala Sagar bund leakage Reservoir's breakdown inundating crops in region

Mahbubnagar: The leakage in Sarala Sagar bund located in Madanapur mandal of Wanaparthy district has further led to the breakdown of the bund on Tuesday, due to which water from the reservoir was flowing downstream inundating crops in the region.

The Sarala Sagar reservoir dam was constructed way back during the Congress regime and was built to hold about 491.37 million cubic feet of water. The dam was a rock construction having a length of 158.49 meters in length and on the both sides it has a mud bud constructed over a length of 1078 meters.

In fact, this is the first dam in Asia and second in the world to have been built with automatic Saifan technology. However, during the past many years this dam was neglected, and the government did not give due attention for its development and maintenance due to which the mud bund developed a leakage and later broke down further flooding the crops in the region.

Even though the State government during the third phase of mission Kakatiya project renovated the reservoir bund with a cost of Rs 230 crore, the quality of work was poor due to which the dam's mud bund sustained leakage.

The concerned irrigation authorities have said that the government has released no funds for the maintenance of the project. Barring funds under the insurance funds of the farmers, this reservoir did not have any funds for maintenance. There are 10 villages under this reservoir who are benefitting the irrigation water.

As many as 398 acres of land under both right and left canals were getting irrigation water. However, with the damage of the bund, the entire water from the reservoir was going waste and flooding a vast spread of crops causing huge damage to paddy farmers under this project.

The people of Shankarammapeta village of Madanapur mandal are demanding that the government immediately take steps to reconstruct the bund and save them from the crop damage.nundating crops in region