SAMBALPUR: The additional spillway project, that will increase floodwater discharge from the Hirakud dam, is hanging fire.
The project has not seen any progress after the Tata Projects and AGE Group, Turkey, which had been entrusted to carry out the construction work, backed out from the project midway.
Tata Projects and AGE Group, started work on the additional spillway, which had been estimated at Rs 369.53 crore, in January 2019.
They began excavation work for the spillway and excavated around 4 lakh cubic metre soil.
However, in February 2020, TATA Projects and its partner AGE Group wrote to the government and backed out from the project citing the reason that the government was delaying handing over the site for construction work.
No progress has been made on the project after that.
Executive engineer of spillway division, Hirakud Dam Project, Himansu Mishra said, “After the withdrawal of Tata Project and Age Group, a proposal was sent to the government for floating fresh tender for it.
A fresh tender will be floated after the proposal is approved by the government.
Some legal issues have to be resolved before that.
Official sources said the length of the proposed additional spillway dam will be 91 metres.
There will be five sluice gates.
The proposed spillway channel will originate from near Gandhi Minar on the left dyke of Hirakud Dam reservoir and meet the river Mahanadi near the Jawahar Uddyan.
The Central Water Commission (CWC) recommended to enhance the flood water discharge capacity of the dam keeping in view the meteorological change, climate change and probable maximum flood.
Currently, there are 98 gates, including 64 sluice gates and 34 crest gates to release the flood water from the Hirakud dam.
Around 15 lakh cusecs of water is released through the 98 gates at a time now.
With the construction of the additional spillway, the water discharge capacity of the Hirakud dam will increase to 18 lakh cusecs.