Pampa Sagar Dam’s crest gate fixed a week after it was swept away

Bengaluru, Aug 17 (PTI) The damaged crest gate of the Pampa Sagar dam on the Tungabhadra river in Koppal district was on Saturday finally fixed after its chain snapped and it was swept away on August 11 night, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said.

The dam with a water holding capacity of 104 TMC had to release about 35 TMC downstream to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana after being filled to the brim in the recent rains.

The decision to empty the dam was taken to prevent any damage to the dam and take up the repair work.

“Our engineers and senior officers gave me information with video message that the water flow has stopped,” Shivakumar, who holds the Water Resources portfolio, told reporters here.

According to the DCM, there was an inflow of 65,000 cusecs water, which the officers were trying to store.

The Karnataka government had roped in hydro-mechanical engineer N Kannaiah Naidu from Hyderabad to fix the damaged gate.

Along with him, the Karnataka government sought the assistance of JSW Group to manufacture steel items for the dam, and two contractor firms Hindustan Engineering and Narayana Engineering.

The DCM thanked Naidu, JSW, the two contractor firms, the officials of the Tungabhadra Board on behalf of the state government.

He also said the crest gate had only one chain due to which it happened. The state government would work to have two chains to avoid such recurrences in future.