A three-member team of the Central Water and Power Consultancy Services from New Delhi on Tuesday visited the Hirakud Dam at Burla to examine the leakage in the dam’s power house gallery.
“The team would work as per the recommendation of the four-member team of the National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) that visited the powerhouse last month,” head of Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) unit SN Das told reporters here.
Prior to the visit of the NCDS team, a five-member team of the Odisha Dam Safety organisation had visited the dam on June 4 to study the leakage in the units 6 and 7 of the powerhouse gallery that were built in 1956 and 1989-90, respectively.
The team, in its report to the State Government, had claimed that the leakage would pose no threat to the main dam. Meanwhile, the water level at the Hirakud Dam reservoir has crossed the 600-feet mark following incessant rainfall in the upper catchment of the Mahanadi.
According to the dam authorities, the water level stood at 600.32 feet by 6 pm on Monday. While 56,278 cusecs of water were entering the reservoir, 21,269 cusecs were being released. Of this, 4157 cusecs of water were being released for irrigation.
A major share of this season’s first flood waters from the dam would be released on July 24 after a ceremonial Puja. The authorities said it is obligatory to discharge water from the reservoir between July and September to improve its retention capacity.