Sambalpur: Additional spillway construction project, the period is over, the land acquisition is not over

Sambalpur: For the construction of additional spillways in the Hirakud Reservoir, the land acquisition is not over. On the other hand, the four-year term of 28 employees, including the Special Land Acquisition Officer for Land Acquisition, has already come to an end. Now their term is expected to be extended for another four years. In 1997, the Central Water Commission and the state government have jointly assessed the maximum possible floods (PMF) in the river. The Hirakud Reservoir is expected to receive 24.50 lakh cusecs of flood water at the same time. Under the current system, a maximum of 15 lakh cusecs of flood water can be discharged from the Hirakud reservoir at the same time. The Chhattisgarh government is constructing several barrages on the upper reaches of the river and discharging arbitrary rainwater to protect its state. This has increased the risk to the Diamond Reservoir. With this in mind, steps have been taken by the state government in collaboration with the Central Water Commission and the World Bank to build additional spillways. The state government reopened the Spillway division in 2018.

Notably, there has been no significant progress in land acquisition over the past four years. There is also the problem of displacement The construction of the additional spillway has not yet begun. In 2018, Tata Infra Projects Limited contracted for Rs 369.53 crore for the project. However, the project was withdrawn in 2020 due to delays in the transfer of land after the contractor worked for only Rs 12 crore. The Water Resources Department then tendered directly to Nadaki on November 2021 to the Odisha Construction Corporation (OCC) for additional spillway construction. However, the expenditure was estimated at Rs 369.53 crore, an increase of Rs 624.38 crore. Now the cost has been increased to an estimated Rs 786 crore.