The irrigation engineers have begun a massive effort to install stop log gate No. 16 at the KL Rao Sagar (Pulichintala) project. The process which began in the early hours of Saturday will continue on Sunday. The water levels at the dam have been reduced considerably to facilitate the installation of the gate meant to arrest the flow.

“The installation of the stop log gate is meant to stop the flow of water and it will not be functional to operate as a radial crest gate allowing water discharges,” said Superintending Engineer of the Pulichintala project J. Ramesh Babu. Two teams of engineers working in two shifts were supervising the challenging work.

The Pulichintala balancing reservoir has 24 radial crest gates each measuring 17.5 feet in length and 18.3 feet in width. The crest gates are movable and there are 11 blocks behind the gate. The stop log gate is being erected behind the crest gate and is meant to stop the water flow.

The radial crest gate was washed away in the early hours of Wednesday due to heavy inflow of water from Nagarjuna Sagar. “It all happened in 10-15 seconds. We have been trying to fix the stop log gate after ensuring the water inflows are reduced,” said Mr. Ramesh Babu.

As the inflows reduced gradually, the storage level at the dam was reduced to 38.28 metres from 53.24 metres.

The Pulichintala dam was designed to stabilise 13.08 lakh acres of ayacut besides generating 120 MW of power in the hydel unit located at Vajinipalli village in Nalgonda district.

The dam has a catchment area of 20,028 km and has been designed for a maximum flood discharge of 20,37,656 cusecs. The gross storage of the reservoir is 45.77 tmcft of which 36.23 tmcft is live storage.

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Printable version | Oct 12, 2022 1:51:30 am | https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/stop-log-gate-at-pulichintala-being-installed/article35794574.ece