Engineers work on repairing 19th crest gate of Pampa Sagar dam
Koppal, Karnataka: Engineers have been sweating it out to fix a new crest gate of the Pampa Sagar dam on Tungabhadra river in Koppal after the existing one was swept away on August 11.
The replacement of the crest gate started from Wednesday night and is likely to take at least another 24 hours to 48 hours, sources in the Water Resources department said.
The Karnataka government has roped in hydro-mechanical engineer N Kannaiah Naidu from Hyderabad to fix the 19th gate of the dam, the sources added.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Naidu said usually the life span of the crest gate of a dam is about 40 years but the one which swept away, had served 30 more years than the average.
ALSO READ: CM Siddaramaiah issues direction to restore damaged crest gate of Tungabhadra reservoir in 3-4 days
After the gate gave way late on Sunday night, all the gates of the dams were opened and water was released to prevent any damage to the dam.
The exercise included reducing the existing water holding capacity 105 TMC to 65 TMC to minimise the stress on the dam and carry out repair work at the earliest.
An alert has been sounded to the districts downstream of Tungabhadra river in Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
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Raze Aurangzeb’s grave, call Nitish and Naidu when it happens: Uddhav Thackeray
Mumbai, Mar 18 (PTI): Slamming the BJP for raking up a “400-year-old issue”, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the government should raze Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s tomb in Maharashtra’s Khultabad.
Thackeray was speaking to reporters in Vidhan Bhawan premises, a day after protests against Aurangzeb's tomb triggered violence in Nagpur, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ home town.
“Raze Aurangzeb’s tomb immediately, but do call Nitish Kumar and Chandrababu Naidu when that happens,” Thackeray said. He slammed the BJP-led government for raking up a "400-year-old" issue.
Observers said the reference to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Naidu and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar - both key BJP allies – was in the backdrop of the importance of Muslim votes for Naidu’s TDP and Nitish Kumar’s JDU in elections in their states.
“If BJP has any issue with green colour, it should remove the green colour from their flag,” Thackeray said. “You tried to malign our party’s saffron flag and try to teach us Hindutva,” he added.
Thackeray said Aurangzeb was born in Gujarat and was vanquished and died in Maharashtra.
Shiv Sena UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray said that the BJP is "shameless" as the violence took place in the hometown of CM Fadnavis.
"Sadly, when the BJP cannot govern, they resort to violence, riots and this is their set formula in every state. They are trying to dig up the history of someone who lived 300-400 years ago, but they cannot speak about the future. They cannot speak about the present,” he said.
Aditya Thackeray accused the BJP of orchestrating the tomb controversy to distract from the state government's failures. He claimed the BJP was trying to "make a Manipur of Maharashtra".
