KHAMMAM: With each drop of rain upstream the Godavari, anxiety levels among the residents of Bhadrachalam town in Telangana and Yetapaka in the Alluri Sitharamaraju district of Andhra Pradesh are rising. Try as they might, they are unable to divert their attention from the damaged part of the flood bank that offers them protection against the rising river water every year.
The State government had constructed the flood bank to protect Bhadrachalam and Yetapaka village from Godavari floods which take place every year.
Following bifurcation of the State, about 2.95 kilometres of the flood bank went to AP.
Worryingly for the people of Bhadrachalam, there has allegedly been no supervision or monitoring of the flood bank on the AP side.
The flood bank has been levelled by encroachers at many places and temporary houses have come up. Additionally, the one-metre tall protection wall constructed to protect the town from floods has collapsed at 5 to 10 places due to rains. It is learnt some parts of the flood bank on the AP side have sunk and gaps on top of the bund are visible. About 15 to 20 metres of the protection wall is crumbling to the extent that it appears to be collapsing.
During the 2022 floods, the water had overflowed the bund and some places were slightly submerged.
Telangana Irrigation officials have informed this to their counterparts in AP and have also written to officials of Dowleswaram project. Their missives have evoked no response till now. D Venkatesh, assistant executive engineer (Irrigation) in Bhadrachalam said not only the flood bank and protection wall pose a risk to the residents, but also two sluices that have been leaking.
These sluices need immediate repairs to ensure there is no threat to Bhadrachalam town. “Our attempts to get the AP officials to act have been in vain so far,” he said. Businreddy Shanker Reddy, a senior citizen of Bhadrachalam town said that the AP government should take up repair works immediately.