Intensive work is underway at the Tungabhadra dam to repair the ‘gate’ that ensures abundant water for farms

In July, as heavy rains filled reservoirs in south Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar held a traditional “bagina,” or thanksgiving, at the Krishna Raja Sagar dam near Mysore. The reservoir, which had been dwindling in water supply last year due to a severe drought, is now almost full.

This month, a similar Thanksgiving event was planned at the Tungabhadra reservoir in Hospet, which was also almost full after a long, dry summer. However, the event had to be postponed due to a dam failure when one of the peak gates burst on August 10. A large amount of stored water had to be released to repair the damaged gate.

The dam, holding 97.75 billion cubic feet (TMC) of water, was 92 percent full on August 12. However, runoff reduced it to 86 percent on August 13 (91.31 TMC). On August 14, it came down to 79 percent, at 83.74 TMC.

Siddaramaiah, who visited the Tungabhadra dam on August 13, said the 64 TMC of water that would remain in the reservoir after complete drainage would be enough to meet the irrigation needs of farmers downstream for their first crop. The water from the reservoir serves 900,000 hectares of agricultural land in Karnataka and 300,000 hectares in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Spanning the Tungabhadra River at Hospet, the dam, commissioned in 1953, has been the saviour of districts like Ballari, Vijayanagara and Koppal in Karnataka, besides Kurnool and Anantapur in Andhra. A few kilometres downstream is Hampi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where the ruins of the 14th-16th century Vijayanagara Empire are a prime tourist destination.

The multi-purpose dam has 33 spillway gates. At 10:50 p.m. on August 10, while 10 gates were in use, a chain link at gate 19 broke, causing the gate to be washed out of the groove.

“In view of the broken chain link of peak gate 19, we have opened all the peak gates to reduce the stress on the dam. Currently, 98,000 cusecs of water is being released, including 35,000 cusecs from peak gate 19,” Shivakumar, also the water resources minister, said after inspecting the dam on August 11. A cusec is a unit of flow equal to 1 cubic foot per second. Shivakumar noted that irrigation channels have been opened and work is on to fill tanks and reservoirs.

As an interstate project, the dam is managed by the Tungabhadra Board, whose chairman is appointed by the federal government and four members representing the three riparian states and the central government.

Experts have been called in and work is underway to install the gate. The repairs will take around four to five days, said Siddaramaiah, who noted that this is the first such incident in the dam’s 71-year history.

The chain link, which is connected to the hoist, is used to open the gates to release water, explained Hubballi-based dam expert Dr SG Joshi, who sits on dam safety review panels in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Bihar. Standard maintenance procedures usually include detailed inspections before and after the monsoon season. Reports are sent to the Central Water Commission and the state dam safety organisation.

“There is a set procedure which has become more stringent with the enactment of the Dam Safety Act, 2021,” Joshi explained. The Act provides a comprehensive framework for proper supervision, inspection, operation and maintenance of all dams in the country designated as ‘large’ to ensure safe functioning and avoid disasters due to dam failure.

Holding the Congress government responsible for the maintenance of the dam, Karnataka’s main opposition party, the BJP, demanded that the dispensation immediately provide compensation of Rs 50,000 per hectare to the farmers, besides conducting an inquiry into the failure of the peak sluice gate. “We need 115 TMC of water, but 20 TMC has already been wasted. We expect around 40 TMC of water from the coming rains, but it depends on nature. Considering the situation, it will be difficult to cultivate the second crop,” said former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, who inspected the dam with other BJP leaders on August 12.

Bommai said that silt accumulation over the years has been a major challenge in the Tungabhadra reservoir as it has reduced the water storage capacity by 30 TMC. He said that it is an opportune time to take up the proposal for a parallel reservoir in the region for which the design report is ready. The proposal is for a balancing reservoir at Navali to compensate for the water storage deficit due to silt in the Tungabhadra reservoir.

Siddaramaiah said the Navali project will cost Rs 15,000 crore and will require approval from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. For now, he said, the respite is weather forecast indicating rains towards the end of this month. “I am sure the Tungabhadra dam will fill up again and we will be able to offer marshland,” he said.

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