Telangana news India (Telangana powerhouse fire: Red flags raised over dam’s poor upkeep, funds crunch in 2 states)

Telangana powerhouse fire: Red flags raised over dam’s poor upkeep, funds crunch in 2 states

The fire in the underground hydroelectric force station on the left bank of Srisailam dam came it after different warnings were raised about helpless upkeep of going with structures, including the auxiliary honesty of dam itself, on which the plant were assembled. 

An extending plunge pool — is made by disintegration of the characteristic stream bed downstream of the dam because of the hefty spillage of rising waters — a ways off around 100 meters from spillway has been hailed as an expected danger to the dam's is long haul security, even as the desperate state power utilities of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have done minimal throughout the years to address wellbeing issues. 

The poor monetary circumstance of utilities likewise normally converts into illegular support and upkeep of different pieces of intensity plant. 

The issue of harm to the dive pool and downstream cover — layers of work lattice secured with high-quality cement — was hailed at the 39th gathering of the National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) in Bhubaneswar in February 2019. A board of specialists on dam security is found out to have communicated worry over "the disintegration of plunge pool situated inverse fourth to sixteenth squares" on the regular course of the waterway, and endowed the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, with doing submerged videography. 

It is found out that the NIO's examinations – a bathymetric study to quantify the profundity of the water body and guide its submerged highlights, along with groups of jumpers with submerged cameras shooting the internal parts of the unclog pool – proposed a potential jerk of the unclog pool towards the dam. 

Furthermore, the NCDS solicited the National Institute from Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee, to set up a crisis activity plan (EAP) and a dam break examination, alongwith immersion maps – which demonstrates that the board saw the basic issues genuinely. 

Nonetheless, very little has been done to address these worries since, authorities in the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) stated, and demonstrated that over Rs 50 crore would be expected to take up attempts to capture the spread of the dive pool both towards and away from the dam. The CEA is the office that issues clearances to huge measured hydro ventures in the nation. 

The Srisailam dam is rides the waterway Krishna in a profound canyon on the outskirt of Telangana's Mahabubnagar region and Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool locale. The supply of the dam spreads more than 616 sq km, and there are two force plants on either side of the dam. 

The left bank underground station, where mishap occurred, is on Telangana side. It has 900MW introduced limit with respect to siphoned capacity activity; the correct bank underground force station, with a limit of 770MW, is on the Andhra side. 

The force utilities in the two states are in poor money related condition. Misfortunes brought about by the discoms in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh dramatically increased during the primary portion of FY'19 on a year-on-year premise, as indicated by a Power Ministry report, with falling effect on upstream producing organizations, for example, the ones working the Srisailam plants. 

The extraordinary duty of power is creating firms had expanded 21 percent yearly to Rs 40,580 crore during H1FY19, with Telangana and Andhra Pradesh coming in third and fourth in the rundown of discoms positioned by outstandings to producing utilities. 

There have been demands that Union government should rope in the Central Water Commission to address the dive pool issue utilizing the World Bank's DRIP (Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project) reserves.