MANGALORE: With the Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, promising that the State Government will bear the cost of repairing the vented dam at Thumbay, the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) is expected to finalise the tender process and award the contract by August. The work is expected to commence in December after the end of the monsoon.

The KUIDFC, while confirming the schedule, has clarified that the Mangalore City Corporation will be the implementing authority while it will fund the project. In view of the Chief Minister's directions, the KUIDFC is expected to revive the tender process stopped by the corporation after differences over the need for repairs, which is estimated to cost Rs. 3.20 crores

The Managing Director of the KUIDFC, K.P. Krishnan, told The Hindu that repairing the dam is a better option for the civic body than building a new one, which is estimated to cost around Rs. 20 crores. The repairs will augment water storage capacity at Thumbay, he said.

Declines comment

Declining to comment on the issue of building a new vented dam being politicised, Mr. Krishnan referred to the statement made by his counterpart in the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board, B. Srinivasa Reddy, at a meeting chaired by the Chief Minister here on Tuesday. Mr. Reddy said that once the dam is repaired and the silt removed, its storage capacity is bound to increase.

Even as the repair work is on, all stakeholders, particularly the corporation, can arrive at a consensus on the need to build a new dam. "It is possible that one can also go in for a smaller dam. There is also the technical view that we may require a series of small dams to contain the backwater spread," he noted.

These options can be gauged only when a survey is done on the submergence of land. Also, a smaller dam can be built in addition to the existing one and both can be used, he said. On the location of the new dam, he said that as per Torsteel Research Foundation of India (TRFI) report, the proposed dam should be behind the existing dam.

Submergence

Mr. Krishnan said that building the new dam ahead of the existing dam will mean that one will have to deal with the saltwater ingress.

The TRFI report states that building a dam in front of the existing dam will cause submergence and this has to be investigated in detail, he added.

He said it is not possible to predict the flow in the Netravati during the monsoon as it is a very dynamic river.

"Instead, we can design a series of dams which result in zero submergence or a huge dam with all related issues of submergence, and these are the vital issues that we will have to look into."

On the question of silt accumulating in the dam, he said this was pointed out by experts as early as the Sixties.

Accumulation of silt will take place irrespective of the structure of the dam.

The TRFI report says it is better that the dam is repaired, he added.

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