Hyderabad: Infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro (L&T), which bagged the contract for the construction of the controversial Medigadda barrage of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) and executed it, had itself designed the barrage, according to Justice PC Ghose Commission which investigated into irregularities in the mega irrigation project. The commission in its 650-page report also disclosed that the contract agency hid many facts about the construction of the Medigadda Barrage.

The commission found that L&T design team of Delhi did all the design work of the barrage in association with the Central Design Organisation (CDO) of the state government. The design team of L&T headed by Amar Pal Singh and Om Prakash Jangid was involved in the design. “The CMD of L&T instructed their design team to do the designs of Medigadda barrage and the L&T design team of Delhi has done all the design work of Medigadda barrage. The designs were finalized by the CDO with discussions and deliberations made with the L&T design team. Later, the agency commenced the execution of barrage work accordingly. The designs and drawings were shared between CDO and L&T design wing. The L&T knows pretty well that it's a construction failure, but L&T is hiding the facts,” the report explained.

The report also said that the Certificate of Completion of Medigadda Barrage works was issued on March 30, 2021, by the Irrigation Department’s Executive Engineer T Tirupathi Rao.

Interestingly, the same engineer wrote a letter to the contract agency a week later on April 6 that "It was requested to mobilize men, material, and plan for taking up works for rectifying all the machinery damages occurred in the CC blocks, wearing coat, etc, and also to take up the balance original works i.e., approach roads to barrage, construction/erection of maintenance bays for gantry cranes on both sides of the barrage etc.” But it seems no efforts are made to take up the rectification of all the damage and completing the balance of the original works.

The Dy Executive Engineer has reported that there are balance/pending works and rectification works to be attended by the agency for the subject work. It was also instructed several times by the Engineer-in -Chief and Superintending Engineer during their site visit to carry out these works, the report said.