Retaining wall of Sunkishala project at Nagarjuna Sagar Dam collapses like a pack of cards

Hyderabad: In a shocking incident, a high retaining wall at Nagarjuna Sagar Dam's Sunkishala project collapsed, exposing the lack of safety and quality standards in such large projects. While the incident occurred on August 1, it only came to light on Thursday after a video of the wall collapse emerged.

As there were was no one at the construction site owing to shift change time, there were no casualties. The Sunkishala project is being constructed to meet Hyderabad's drinking water needs. The project aims to transport water from the Krishna River through tunnels to Hyderabad.

Damage to a barrage that was built as part of the then BRS government's prestigious Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) had snowballed into a major controversy ahead of last year's assembly polls.

Of the several reservoirs built by the Telangana government as part of KLIP, Medigadda (Lakshmi) reservoir in Mahadevpur of Jayashankar Bhupalpally district was the starting point and witnessed the sinking of a few pillars.

At that time, the opposition Congress found an opportunity to support their charges of large-scale corruption in KLIP, compromising the quality of work.

For extracting water from the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir, three tunnels were being constructed, and an intake well was being built to channel the water coming through these tunnels.

However, on August 1, the retaining wall of the Sunkishala intake well collapsed. As a result, the surge pool was completely filled with Krishna water. To restart the work, the water level in Nagarjuna Sagar must first drop to a minimum.

The incident happened while construction was underway for the surge pool at Sunkishala. The project plan calls for pumping and transporting water from the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir, which comes through three tunnels, to the Kodandapur Water Treatment Plant, ten kilometres away.

Since the water needs to be extracted from the Sagar reservoir at a level of 462 feet, three tunnels were dug from below that level. Gates were installed to manage the water flow from these tunnels to construct the intake well, and retaining walls were constructed for protection.

However, the Sagar reservoir currently has a water level of 585 feet, while its full capacity is 590 feet. As a result, water has entered these tunnels, breaking the gates, collapsing the retaining wall, and flooding the intake well.

Despite initiating the Sunkishala project in 1980, it did not progress. Two years ago, the then BRS government finally launched the project with an estimated cost of Rs 1450 crore. However, the estimated cost has not escalated to Rs 2,215 crore due to project delays.

As per the original schedule, the project was supposed to be completed by the summer of 2023 to supply drinking water to the city of Hyderabad. The construction of a three-row pipeline, spanning over ten kilometres from Sunkishala to Kodandapur, is almost complete.