Tunneling work starts at SLBC collapse site

Five months after the roof of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel at Domalapenta village in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district collapsed trapping eight persons working on the project in the debris, and with six of the bodies yet to be recovered, the Telangana government has started work on completing the tunnel.

- Srinivasa Rao Apparasu

The 44-km long tunnel, which is expected to cost ₹4,600 crore , aims to transfer Krishna river water from the Srisailam reservoir to provide irrigation to 400 thousand acres in the erstwhile combined Nalgonda district besides providing drinking water to 516 villages en route, but work on it has been on a standstill since February 22, four days after work started on acritical 9.6 km long stretch of the tunnel at Nallamala.

On Saturday, state irrigation minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy took stock of the project in a high-level meeting. He directed officials to immediately resume the remaining tunnelling operations, including drilling and blasting. He said the rerouting of the SLBC tunnel work was being taken up using the latest electromagnetic survey technology in collaboration with the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) and the Geological Survey of India (GSI).

“In order to ensure precise planning and seamless execution, we directed officials to expedite the aerial LIDAR survey. We had a meeting with the NGRI scientists to finalise the technical modalities of the survey,” the minister said.

LIDAR is a remote sensing technology that uses lasers.