Hirakud Dam spillway construction progress: CWC team to carry out inspection today

A team from the Central Water Commission (CWC), which arrived in Burla in Sambalpur yesterday, will conduct an inspection of the proposed construction of an additional spillway at the Hirakud Dam.

The nine-member team consists of five CWC officials and four representatives from the World Bank. Sources stated that the team will review the construction work of the left spillway on the Hirakud side, which had started but was later halted. Additionally, they will inspect the dam foundation gallery, sluice gate operations, and power channel.

As part of their inspections, the team visited a few locations of the Hirakud Dam near Burla yesterday and held discussions with dam authorities.

Additional spillway under the DRIP III project:

On February 8, the Odisha Cabinet approved 11 projects including three to be implemented under the Dam Rehabilitation & Improvement Project-III (DRIP-III)

Estimated to cost Rs 1066.38 crore, the DRIP-III project is expected to span a period of six years. Additionally, the project will be implemented with assistance from the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) funded under an Externally Aided Project.

Significance of the spillway and DRIP-III project:

One of the largest dams of its kind, the Hirakud dam currently handles floodwater via 64 sluice gates and 34 crest gates and was designed to handle a discharge of 1.5 million cusecs floodwater per second. However, recent estimates have figured that the dam will be required to handle over 2.46 million cusecs in the near future, mandating the need for additional spillways on its right and left flanks.

Following the upgrade, the Hirakud Dam is expected to handle a discharge capacity of 3,22,000 cusecs through five new gates, significantly increasing its throughput.