After the 2015 flash floods damaged three floodgates of the Bhadar dam, the second largest reservoir of Saurashtra, the state irrigation division began altering all its 29 floodgates and is extra prone to full the work by April end.
Engineers of Rajkot Irrigation Tasks Circle of the irrigation division acknowledged the work on altering all the floodgates of the dam started in January and is predicted to be achieved by the tip of the following month.
“As per the newest standing, 14 floodgates have already been changed. Our goal is to finish the work by end-March,” Shailesh Patel, the supervisor engineer of (RIPC), acknowledged.
Positioned at Lilakha village in Gondal taluka Rajkot, Bhadar dam has a gross storage functionality of 188.14 million cubic metres (mcm), the second-highest throughout the Saurashtra space after the Shetrunji dam. “Building work for this dam began in 1952 and water for irrigation from it was given to farmers for the primary time in 1963. The gates had been fairly previous and wanted to get replaced. Officers from the Dam Security Organisation (DSO) had additionally visited the dam a while in the past and it was felt that the gates wanted to get replaced,” a provide throughout the irrigation division acknowledged.
Every of the 29 floodgates is six-foot extreme and 35-foot prolonged. “Vertical girders supporting the floodgates had started rusting and weakening.
“An inspection by the Gujarat Engineering Analysis Institute (GERI), Vadodara, lately had really helpful that the gates must be changed. Dam Security Organisation of Central Water Fee had additionally made comparable suggestions,” Patel acknowledged. The supervisor engineer added the gates of the dams are being modified after spherical 65 years.
The floodgate numbers 11, 14, and 28 had been damaged following an unprecedented inflow of water in Bhadar dam on account of a flash flood attributable to a cloudburst in its catchment house in Amreli district in June 2015. Sill-beams of these gates had been damaged as cars like tractors, tractor-trollies and large bushes crashed into the dam building after being washed away throughout the flash flood. The irrigation division had then restored the development by endeavor some repairing work.
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“Guidelines mandate that contemporary coat of paint be utilized to the gates each three years. Earlier than a contemporary coat is utilized, the gates are sandblasted to take away corrosion. For the previous few cycles, gates gauge was discovered to have considerably diminished because of the strategy of corrosion, warranting their substitute,” one different officer added.
Anar Building Non-public Restricted of Ahmedabad has been awarded the work of adjusting the floodgates at a whole worth of Rs 1.66 crore. The private company is forging parts of the floodgates at its manufacturing unit and assembling them on the dam web site after transporting them there. Every gate has three parts, engineers acknowledged.
“The wire-ropes of the gates had been changed publish the flash flood in 2015 and, due to this fact, the current contract doesn’t embody changing the wire-ropes,” acknowledged an officer.
Moreover being a major irrigation scheme, Bhadar dam moreover offers ingesting water to Rajkot metropolis.