Hirakud: The water resources department has floated a proposal to put up an additional spillway by constructing five more sluice gates cutting a stretch of 945 metre in length of the left dyke of the Hirakud Dam.
According to the recommendation of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) division of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change, the department has planned to release the additional flood water in Mahanadi via canal. Once the project gets operational, about 3.22 lakh cusecs of water would be released into Mahanadi.
However, the locals and conscious citizens have expressed resentment over the proposal, a report said.
They argued that over 716 families of Gandhinagar, Gujatala, Fast Camp, Re-Rolling Mill Colony, Cable Colony and Premnagar would be displaced by the project. Besides, more than 3,500 trees from reserved and unreserved forests have to be felled.
The cost of the project was estimated at Rs 590 crore in 2016 and it is likely to escalate.
Even as the administration has held public hearings on a couple of occasions over the issue, locals are still opposing the project.
On the other hand, the construction of the spillway would lead to constant flood situation in the lower catchment area of Mahanadi in the absence of water holding capacity of 69,632 cubic metre of water, feared many experts.
The Central Water Commission (CWC) had given a proposal to the water resources department to increase the water releasing capacity of Hirakud barrage.
At present, the dam releases 42,450 cubic metre of water through the existing 64 gates in left and right spillways and 34 crest gates.
However, the CWC has advised to increase the amount of released water to 69,632 cubic metre to reduce threat to the dam.
The global tender processing for the construction of the additional spillway to release the water would end August 4.
The decision for spillway construction has been taken following joint meetings of the water resources department officials and the CWC representatives after taking Probable Maximum Flood situation into consideration, a report said.
