By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Oct 10: Apart from IIT, Guwahati, the state government is engaging Central Soil and Materials Research Station and Central Water Power Research Station for Instrumentations and Earthquake Parameters for ensuring the safety of Umiam Dam.
Power Commissioner and Secretary, Sanjay Goyal on Tuesday said whatever reports the state government received indicated that the dam is meeting the required safety standards.
He said while the IIT, Guwahati is looking after the bridge and sub-structure part, the government is engaging two more agencies under the dam rehabilitation programme to study and fix problems.
“They will give us the DPRs of all rehabilitation works. Money is available with us under the World Bank scheme,” Goyal said.
“We will engage an expert agency. Not every contractor can do it as it requires going 50-100 metres down and doing the work when there is already water. It is a highly-specialised work but there are some agencies which are into dam rehabilitation work. The tenders are floated in that fashion,” he said.
The Power Commissioner and Secretary said the state government and the Government of India are aware that certain dams are reaching their lifecycle. He said studies are being conducted under the dam rehabilitation and improvement project called DRIP and the rehabilitation exercise will be taken up.
Stating that the IIT-Guwahati has been doing safety audit for the past few years, he said, “They conducted some exercise and tests recently and some more tests are required to be done by them. So, it is in the process.” “For Umiam, there are two structures. One is the superstructure or the structure above the dam which is the bridge part wherein certain works are still going on. We are in the process of changing the ball bearings and all of which have been found require replacement,” Goyal said.
“The second is the sub-structure part of the safety of the dam. Various tests have been done by the technical agencies. As of now, there is no adverse report but still, under this dam rehabilitation programme as well, we are engaging one more agency to study in detail the dam’s sub-structure, safety, leakages or any other related aspect,” he said.