Andhra Pradesh - Guntur   

Bund formation work at Voleru left unfinished, feel experts

GUNTUR: Improper planning and execution of work on right floodbank widening by Patel Engineering, clubbed with stopping work for non-payment of bills basically put the bund at Voleru in an unsafe position to handle over 10 lakh cusecs of discharge from Prakasam Barrage.

The Roads and Buildings Department, which had prepared the engineering designs, had put such stringent norms that had work been completely finished at that stretch it could have resisted a discharge of even above 20 lakh cusecs, but against the norms, a large stretch of bund was permitted to be tackled at one go and the Patel Engineering began the work in April 2009 and left it half finished in June 2009.

Krishna Central Irrigation Executive Engineer Bhaskar Rao, under whose guidance the bund widening works were going on, said that generally the contractor had come upto safe level as far as bund formation was concerned. As per engineering norms for flood bank formation only a short stretch of bund needs to be tackled to come upto the expected level with proper compaction, but here that was not done and the final level was another two meters to be built, which made the spot weak, according to engineering experts.

Navayuga Engineering, which was tackling the left flood bank had completed the work to safe levels and the Krishna District Collector along with Ministers ensured sufficient quantity of sand bags were available at all vulnerable spots and small leaks plugged immediately. That kind of planning did not go into this particular spot in Guntur district despite caution from locals and irrigation engineering official knowing about the weak spots.

Contractor, who has to complete the entire stretch of right flood bank widening from Prakasam Barrage to Lankevani Dibba (64 k.m.) stretch shifted to Vellaturu stretch leaving the Voleru stretch half finished in June. While local politicians claim that they had requisitioned heavy earth moving machines to increase the level at Voleru, and that even got boulders brought there, it was all futile in view of the magnitude of water that was flowing in.

All that is being talked about now in Guntur district is, how well they could rescue the villagers and avoid human life loss and not failure of supervision from top engineering and administrative officials that led to the entire situation.

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