Retaining wall of Sunkesula collapses

Hyderabad : The proposal to provide drinking water to Hyderabad from Sunkesula is likely to be delayed by a year as the 50-meter retaining wall of the Sunkesula project collapsed recently. Though the incident took place on August 2, it came to light only on Thursday.

Officials said that a major disaster was averted as the wall collapse incident happened when the workers engaged in the construction activity were not at the site. The entire pumphouse was flooded with water soon after the incident took place.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS&SB), which has taken up the project at a cost of Rs 215 crore in 2021, said a departmental enquiry was already ordered into the wall collapse incident. “The tunnel gate was destroyed, and the sidewall connected to it collapsed due to heavy inflows to Nagarjuna Sagar. All this happened in a span of 5 minutes.

All these works were started in July 2022 and supposed to be completed in 2023. The total cost of the damage will be borne by the construction company. It is initially estimated that the cost of the repairs will be around Rs 20 crore. The incident took place on August 2 at around 7 am. No engineers and workers were present at the site at the time of the incident.

About 60 percent of the works of the project at the intake well, 70 percent of works of pumping main and 40 percent of electro-mechanical works have already been completed. About 90 percent of the works related to three tunnels were also over.

Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka blamed the previous BRS government for the poor-quality works. He said so far they thought only the works at the Kaleshwaram project were of poor quality, but now the collapse of the retaining wall of the Sunkesula project proves that all the projects undertaken during the BRS regime were of poor quality. He said unless the water levels recede they will not be able to make any assessment. The collapsed wall is submerged in the flood waters, he added.