Musi landscape looks up!

The Musi river adjacent to the Salar Jung Museum presents a different picture these days. Two days ago, treated water was pumped from the Amberpet Sewer Treatment Plant into the two rubber dams to inflate them and bring a pleasant change in the landscape.

The last valves and bolts for the two dams, a kilometre apart with the first one constructed near the High Court, are being fixed by the Austrian firm, Hydro Constructs, which has bagged the contract. Construction of control rooms on both ends too is underway.

“It’s been a new experience to us ever since we started work in December. Operating the dams is easy. It can be sunk even without power,” explained Rudolf Fritsch, Managing Director, Hydro Constructs. He and his team have been literally sweating it out in the hot sun for the last few months to ‘raise’ the dams with all material like rubber, pipes, valves and the likes imported from Austria.

The ‘new water’ flowing between the dams is coming with filth, garbage and also plastic bags thrown from the nearby Nayapul and Salar Jung bridges. “We are used to build dams over river waters but I was told measures are being taken to allow relatively clean water and not waste water,” he said.

GHMC Engineering in Chief P. Panduranga Rao said it cost Rs. 16.125 crore to build them and they had a tough time finding a contractor for civil works since construction had to begin eight feet below the river bed. Rau’s Constructions took up the job after three failed tenders and they had the onerous task of digging through decades of accumulated muck. Two million gallons of treated water is pumped from the STP plant to inflate and store water between the collapsible dams which can raise up to 1.5 metres. During heavy inflows, the dams can be deflated pumping out the water. This and construction of green promenades of 20 ft each on either side form part of the Musi Revitalisation Project.