People panic of safety over MMD leakages in Karimnagar

Karimnagar: Discussions about the safety of Mid Manair Dam (MMD) that have been circulating for the past few weeks in the undivided Karimnagar district is creating panic among the people of Manwada, Mallapur, Kottapet and Boupet villagers of Rajanna Sircilla district.

Mid Manair Reservoir, named as Sri Raja Rajeshwari Reservoir, is the key project constructed as part of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) for supplying water to various regions within the district and to surrounding districts of the erstwhile Karimnagar district.

The MMD was constructed with a water storage capacity of 25.873 tmc ft by fixing 25 gates at a cost of Rs 911 crores at Manwada village of Boinapalli mandal of Rajanna Sircilla district.

The officials silent on filling and releasing water from MMD for the past few days is raising doubts about the quality of construction works of MMD.

In August month, the officials had filled MMD with 14 TMCs of water released from Yellampalli reservoir and immediately released the water to lower Manair Dam of Karimnagar. Since one and half month, the officials are not filling water in MMD even though there is sufficient water quantity in Yellampalli reservoir, instead they are releasing water back into River Godavari.

From MMD, water will be supplied to lower Manair dam for drinking and irrigation needs of Karimnagar district and to united Warangal, Medak and Ranga Reddy districts along with the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad to fulfil the drinking water needs of the people living under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

On August 30, when the water level in MMD reached 14 TMCs against its full capacity of 25 TMCs of water, in the presence of officials of irrigation and revenue departments amidst police security, Engineer-in-Chief of MMD Anil Kumar and Sircilla Superintendent of Police Rahul Hegde released water by lifting 25 gates at 10.30 pm. There was no prior information the people living in the surrounding villages, due to which sheep and goats had died and current motors were drowned in the water flow.

Locals alleged that the officials after identifying the poor condition of the dam and the seepages, had released 10 TMCs of water in the night to prevent further harm that may occur if water is stored for some more days in the MMD, without informing the locals.

However, Irrigation Development Corporation Chairman Eda Shankar Reddy explained to the media the reasons for taking such step and said, "If we buy a new pot, we will fill it with water. But we will not keep the water in the pot for a longer period. After some time, we throw it and the same thing was happened in the case of MMD."

But he did not answer certain questions posed by the media like what is the need to release water in the night without informing the people living in surrounding villages.

On October 6, Congress leaders led by Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) working president Ponnam Prabhakar and MLC T.Jeevan Reddy inspected the quality of construction works of Mid Manair Dam on the request of the people living in the surrounding villages of MMD and local leadership.

They alleged that water has been leaking from MMD bund due to poor quality of construction and it may break at any time causing lot of damage to the surrounding villages.

Congress senior leader T.Jeevan Reddy alleged that constructing MMD with poor standards is the biggest mistake in the Kaleshwaram project , taken up by the TRS government and is laying ring bund temporarily to cover up its mistakes instead of renovating the MMD.

Reddy demanded the government for a judiciary enquiry to find out, who is responsible for the failure of the MMD bund construction and to take an immediate action to prevent such incidents to reoccur in future.