Crest gates of Singur project in Sangareddy to be lifted

The Irrigation Department will lift the crest gates of the Singur multipurpose project and restrict water storage to 22 TMCft following a safety warning from the Dam Safety Review Panel. Farmers may face shortages due to reduced reservoir capacity

Sangareddy: The Irrigation Department has decided to lift the crest gates of the Singur multipurpose project, which was built across the river Manjeera at Singur village in Pulkal mandal.

In the wake of the Dam Safety Review Panel’s (DSRP) warning to the Irrigation Department on the dam’s safety, the department decided to restrict the storage in the reservoir to 22 TMCft against its full storage capacity of 29.91 TMCft.

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The project had 22.250 TMCft of water at 3 pm on Wednesday while it was receiving 4,244 cusecs from upstream. Singur DEE Nagaraju announced that they would lift the crest gates besides releasing water through the powerhouse on Wednesday evening.

Since the project was constructed in 1999, this is the first time the Irrigation Department is going to restrict the storage in Singur. It is expected to hit farmers in the area as there would be a shortage of water availability for the ayacut.

Even if the river gets inflows during the season, there would be no way to store the same. The DSRP observed that impounding the project to full capacity would pose a danger to the safety of the dam as the revetment of the project’s earth dam was damaged due to lack of regular maintenance.