Extreme Rains: Kaddam project in Nirmal brims over

Four gates imported from Germany are reportedly dysfunctional, worrying locals and officials. Water is overflowing from the project where these gates were located.

Nirmal: The Kaddam Narayana Reddy Project, one of the oldest irrigation projects in the State, in Kaddampeddur mandal centre is overflowing with flood water and receiving a record inflow of nearly 3 lakh cusecs following heavy rains in upstream areas on Thursday.

The project registered inflows of 2,82,583 lakh cusecs as per a bulletin released by the Irrigation department at 8 am. The water level reached 8.234 TMC as against the storage capacity of 7.60 TMC. Surplus water of 2.36 lakh cusecs is being discharged downstream by lifting 14 gates out of the total 18 gates.

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Four gates imported from Germany are reportedly dysfunctional, worrying locals and officials. Water is overflowing from the project where these gates were located.

Two gates do not have counter-weight, while the ropes of the remaining two gates had snapped. The repairs of the gates commenced a few days back but were affected due to heavy rains.

Both Khanapur MLA A Rekha Naik and Collector K Varun Reddy are monitoring the situation. Varun has already instructed officials to relocate 7,000 people dwelling in seven villages to relief camps at the earliest.  Devunigudem, Rampur, Munyala and Godisherala villages are living in the grip of fear with the project overflowing.

Forest minister Allola Indrakaran Reddy is on his way to the project.

On July 13 last year, the project saw inflows of 509,025 cusecs. Surplus water was discharged downstream by lifting 17 gates.

The dam was taken up across Kaddam river, a tributary of Godavari, in 1949 by the erstwhile government of Hyderabad to irrigate 68,150 acres of agriculture fields on the northern flank of Godavari. It was commissioned in 1958.