Nearly four years after foundation was laid for the low-height-bridge-cum-barrage project over river Koel at Koelnagar here, the proposal has twice undergone design changes and is stuck in fresh survey and technical issues. There is no clarity when the key project would come up.
Rourkela BJP legislator, Dilip Ray, recently raised a question in the Assembly wanting to know if the `446-crore project would be completed this year. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had on July 9, 2013 laid foundation for it at Baikuntha Ghat.
In reply, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said as land acquisition was required at Baikuntha Ghat, it was decided to shift the location 2 km downstream the Koel river at Hamirpur and related survey and investigation are underway following which, tender would be floated.
Sources in the Irrigation division informed in 2015, the original project of low-height-bridge-cum-barrage proposal was redesigned into pick-up weir. However, the second proposal is getting modified into a barrage project with primary aim of storing drinking water.
Earlier in 2014, a tender was floated for around `446 crore for the original proposal with dual aim of facilitating communication and providing irrigation to about 3,500 hectares of land. The project was dropped as the Water Resources department (WRD) realised the proposal was not cost effective and taken up hastily without proper study. Moreover, it would have required acquisition of about 200 hectares amid fear of submergence of nearby areas.
In July 2016, the Principal Secretary to Water Resources Department, PK Jena, had instructed for fresh feasibility and hydrological studies, while RN Pali MLA of BJD Subrat Tarai claimed that tender would be floated by November the same year. That could not be done, given the technical complexities involved in the proposal. Ray insisted on early completion of the project in the backdrop of the unprecedented water crisis faced by the Rourkela Industrial Township (RIT) of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) in April last year with drying of the river.