Engineers work on repairing 19th crest gate of Pampa Sagar dam

Engineers have been sweating it out to fix a new crest gate of the Pampa Sagar dam on Tungabhadra river in Koppal after the existing one was swept away on August 11.

The replacement of the crest gate started from Wednesday night and is likely to take at least another 24 hours to 48 hours, sources in the Water Resources department said.

The Karnataka government has roped in hydro-mechanical engineer N Kannaiah Naidu from Hyderabad to fix the 19th gate of the dam, the sources added.

“Naidu has been camping in Koppal for the past three days. Efforts were on to fix a new gate,” an officer told PTI.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Naidu said usually the life span of the crest gate of a dam is about 40 years but the one which swept away, had served 30 more years than the average.

After the gate gave way late on Sunday night, all the gates of the dams were opened and water was released to prevent any damage to the dam.

The exercise included reducing the existing water holding capacity 105 TMC to 65 TMC to minimise the stress on the dam and carry out repair work at the earliest.

An alert has been sounded to the districts downstream of Tungabhadra river in Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.