HYDERABAD: Not rectifying the defects, which were found back in 2019, resulted in the sinking of Medigadda piers in 2023, said Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Project Director MV Ramakrishna Raju told the Commission of Inquiry on Kaleshwaram project.
Deposing before the Justice PC Ghose Commission here on Friday, Raju also said that the high shooting velocities was also one of the reasons for the damage of the Medigadda barrage.
“It had a cascading effect. Though, the defects were found in 2019, no effort was made to rectify them. Though the barrage should be emptied before the onset of monsoon for inspections every year, it was never kept empty. Even today, there was no attempt to get the damages repaired,” Raju told the Commission.
“No efforts were made to rectify the damage. Whatever defects are there, those have to be rectified immediately,” he said and added that the “damages should have been attended to in 2019 itself”.
Stating that the L&T witnessed a lot of damages and alerted the Irrigation department in 2019, he said that the executive engineer wrote a letter to SE in September, 2019 with a request to conduct the model studies. A meeting, held in February, 2020 at Jala Soudha with experts and engineering officials, noted the need to re-conduct the model studies with various options to reduce the discharge velocities.
When the Commission asked whether the L&T entrusted its works to any sub-contractor, Raju replied in the negative and added that the L&T “would not do such things”. Due to timelines, the L&T doubled the batching plants to eight, doubled ice plants to four and also increased the boom placers and other equipment. Initially the L&T planned to engage 3,000 labour but increased the workforce to 6,000 due to timelines fixed by the government, Raju explained.
“The works were executed with all seriousness and following the quality parametres,” he said and added that a 25 to 30-member quality team of L&T was on the job during the construction.
“The Medigadda defects could be rectified even today,” he opined.
‘Damage to downstream apron remains unrepaired’
L&T vice-president (Hydel) S Suresh Kumar said that as against the design velocity of six metres per second, the velocity observed was 16 m/s. “This caused the damage to Medigadda barrage,” he said.
L&T Deputy GM Rajnish P Chauhan said that they noticed damages to the downstream apron and CC blocks in 2019, when all the barrages were closed. Because of high velocity, the barrage was damaged, he informed the Commission.
“Since then, we have been asking for the revised drawings so that the downstream apron can be restored,” he said.
The damage to the downstream apron remained unrepaired for four years and five seasons, he added.
When the Commission asked whether the barrage could be recovered now, Chauhan suggested that some new structures should be taken up upstream and downstream of the Medigadda barrage to ensure that the pressure won’t come onto the distressed area. “I cannot say any flaw in respect of the designs and drawings. We (L&T) have executed the works as per the designs, drawings and specifications. There was no flaw,” he added.