‘Defective’ structures at Medigadda barrage: Govt banking on vigilance panel report to nail L&T

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Vigilance Commission’s report on the identified ‘defective structures’ at the Medigadda barrage, allegedly improperly constructed by the L&T Limited and handed over to the state government against norms, is being taken as vital material to sue the company soon.

For, the commission has, in its report, nailed L&T over not using quality materials in the barrage construction and not responding to the notices served on it during the investigation. Now, the state Irrigation wing will utilise the key findings in the commission’s report as material evidence to fix L&T’s responsibility in the collapse of the piers of the barrage during floods in 2023.

Top officials said that the Vigilance & Enforcement Department, in the report, concluded that the contract agency (L&T) knowingly handed over a defective structure to the Irrigation Department in 2019. The commission verified a pile of documents and visited the site multiple times to examine the damage suffered by the structure and collected samples of the damages caused, including that of piers.

The samples were sent to labs for analysing the material used in the construction of the piers of the barrage that were damaged. During the investigation, the commission’s instruction to sign the documents related to the analysis of the construction material was also not obeyed by L&T, which, instead, raised many doubts over the company’s sincerity in cooperating with the agency during the investigation.

The commission also faulted the contract agency for not maintaining a record of the barrage maintenance after 2019, despite the agency being liable for the defect liability in case anything happened till 2023.

The probing agency has found violations of the rule book also during the construction period and later instances of poor maintenance of the structure. For instance, it was mandatory for the agency to conduct ultrasound and sub-strata pre-monsoon tests every year for barrages. There was no evidence of such tests being done in the case of the Medigadda barrage.

Taking into consideration the vigilance panel’s serious observations on the poor construction and poor maintenance of the Medigadda barrage by L&T, Irrigation Department officials said, the state government would move forward and take action against the construction agency as per rules soon.