Floodgates to be replaced, lowering of water level starts at Machchhu-II dam
Machchhu-II is the tail-end of Morbi Branch Canal of Narmada dam project.
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Water being released from Machchhu-II dam on Monday. (Express File Photo)The irrigation department has opened floodgates of Machchhu-II dam to drain water from the reservoir to replace five floodgates, which have become very old and are not deemed fit for operation.
“We opened floodgates of Machchhu-II on Sunday and are discharging 1,400 cusec (cubic feet per second) of water into the river. We increased the discharge gradually to take it to 3,100 cusecs,” said Preksha Goswami, executive engineer of Rajkot irrigation circle in which Morbi district falls.
The discharge from the dam on Tuesday was 2,700 cusec and floodgates will remain open till Tuesday evening, he added. “Five of the 20 floodgates in the new spillway were installed in 1989 and have become weak. The government has decided to replace these. For that, we need to reduce water level in the dam,” Goswami said.
Incidentally, Machchhu-II dam had breached in 1979, flooding Morbi town and a few dozen villages of downstream Morbi and Maliya talukas.
Vishal Patel, deputy engineer in charge of Machchhu-II dams irrigation operations, said that they will release 719 million cubic feet (mcft) of the 988 mcft gross storage in the dam, recorded on May 12. “We have already released 619 mcft as of Tuesday and we will release the balance 100 mcft by 4 pm Wednesday,” Patel said.
“Water being released from Machchhu-II dam will fill up 12 check-dams downstream the dam. Additionally, village ponds are being filled up by channelling water in the irrigation canal of Machchhu-III,” he added.
The floodgates, which are set to be replaced, have a height of 41 feet and width of 27 feet each. Machchhu-II dam has 38 gates. Among them, 18 are in the old spillway and 20 are in the new spillway. On Tuesday, three gates of the new spillway were open two feet each, Patel said.
Machchhu-II dam is also an important source of drinking water for Morbi and Jamnagar, among others, as it is from this reservoir that Link-I pipeline canal of Saurashtra Narmada Avataran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana originates and pumps water till Devbhumi Dwarka district via Morbi and Jamnagar districts. “However, supply of drinking water will not be affected due to release of water from Machchhu-II dam. Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited will continue discharging 150 cusec of water into Machchhu-II dam to meet drinking water requirement,” Goswami, also the superintending engineer of Rajkot irrigation circle, said.
Machchhu-II is the tail-end of Morbi Branch Canal of Narmada dam project. “Late summer is the time when the water level in this reservoir remains the lowest and hence, is ideal time for undertaking work related to floodgates,” Goswami said, adding that work of replacing gates will take up to 45 days.
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