Sinking Medigadda sends serious signals

Hyderabad: The sinking of pillars of the Lakshmi Barrage, also known as the Medigadda Barrage, has caused serious embarrassment for the BRS government on the eve of the Assembly elections.

The Medigadda Barrage is the starting point of the world’s largest lift irrigation project (Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project), constructed by the L&T and was inaugurated in June 2019 by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Though the incident took place late on Saturday, it was kept under wraps and neither the officials of the Irrigation department nor the spokesperson of the L&T had reacted till late on Sunday evening.

After 24 hours, the L&T in a brief statement said, “On Saturday night, one of the locations of Block-7 of the barrage, the bridge portion sagging was observed after a loud noise. “L&T will take necessary action to rectify the damage on our own upon technical assessment of the damage and way forward solution at the earliest possible time,” the statement said.

It is not even clear as to how many pillars have sunk. While some said three pillars had sunk, some sources said five pillars between pillar number 15 and 20 from sixth to eighth blocks had sunk. According to some reports, pillar No 19, 20 and 21 sunk below the surface after the explosive sound. Some suspect that there was a “bearing blast” which means that the bearing could not bear the weight of the pillars and broke with loud sound.

In all, there are 87 pillars. Traffic between Telangana and Maharashtra was stopped and diverted on other alternate routes. In fact, the first information about the incident was given by some motorists who noticed the change in the alignment of the road around 8 pm on Saturday and informed the Irrigation department and the police. Officials said the loud noise was heard somewhere near the 20th pillar on the Maharashtra side. By then, the L&T and Irrigation staff engaged in works on the bridge had left for the day. The control room staff immediately alerted higher officials, who inspected the project and found that about 300 metres from the Maharashtra border, a portion of the bridge was out of alignment. At the time of inauguration, the state government said the barrage was constructed with gigantic concrete piers that are 110m in length, 4m/6m in width and 25m height. The L&T which constructed these pillars claimed that the construction involved concrete usage that was equivalent to build 7 Burj Khalifas, steel used to equivalent to building 15 Eiffel Towers and earth excavated would have been equivalent of 6 pyramids of Giza.