Yadadri: Rain fury exposes faulty planning

Yadadri: Substandard works of roads and engineering works have been exposed due to rains. Devotees faced a lot of problems with roads damaged and water entering temple premises.

Several angry devotees questioned lack of field-level study on various technical issues such as road damages, water logging on roads and in queue lines. They rued that no measures were taken to identify engineering faults.

Criticisms have been levelled at the R&B ENCs, who used to come every week along with the CMO officials during the Yadadri renovation works. They were not seen after the road damages.

On Wednesday, Commissioner of Endowments Anil Kumar visited Yadadri and held a review meeting with the officials. He felt that the engineering officials did not do proper planning while taking up the works, which suffered badly due to heavy rains.

It seems that the water from the hilltop was channeled only on one side, without arranging for it to pass through on all the four sides, when heavy rains occur. Engineering officials said that the front portion of the newly built ghat road was washed away as floodwaters rose in one direction. Criticisms have been raised over violation of the basic rule of laying pipes in such a way as to carry water in all the four directions. It was learnt the engineering works in Yadadri were carried out by a company owned by R&B senior executives and relatives. As a result, the local authorities did not dare point out the mistakes made at the time of works.

Locals demand that a high-level committee must visit the shrine to take stock of the situation and take remedial measures to prevent the recurrence of such sad events in the future.