An international water resource team of experts from USA and Canada will be inspecting the Polavaram project from Sunday aiming at resolving key technical challenges presently it is facing. They reached Delhi on Saturday and will inspect the project in detail for two days and later two more days they will conduct a brainstorming session.
Chiefs of Polavaram project authority, experts of Central Water Commission, representatives of CSMRS and others are also following them. Realizing that international level skills are needed to solve the problems caused by obstacles created during the YS Jaganmohan Reddy regime, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu moved at fast in finding out solutions for immediate resume of project works.
The visiting experts are known for their expertise in dam safety, civil engineering, hydraulic structures, structural engineering, structural solutions and geotechnical engineering. Their inspection will start from the upper coffer dam of the Polavaram project.
The team will also examine the photos and studies of the key structures from the beginning of the project. They will be provided the report regarding the safety of this upper coffer dam in 2018, the reports given by Professor Raju on the dam seepage in 2021, the analysis of the seepage with the help of physometers in 2022 and 2023, besides the report submitted by CSMRS in January 2024 and the details of the newly arrived Afri company Geo Technical research.
After that they planned to inspect the lower cofferdam. More attention will be paid to the main dam structures, inspection of the destroyed diaphragm wall, huge holes formed there, and the efforts being made to change the geophysical conditions at the dam. At present, all the major challenges in Polavaram are located in these areas, so the team of experts will spend most of their time there. After that they will discuss with experts and officials in two days.