HYDERABAD
About a dozen workers were injured and a few more were trapped in an accident in the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel, which reportedly collapsed for about three-metre length, early on Saturday (February 22, 2025). The injured were rushed to the TG-Genco hospital near Domalapenta in Nagarkurnool district.
According to the information reaching here and irrigation authorities quoting the working agency (Jaypee Associates) staff, the accident happened around 8 a.m. at the 14 km length of the left tunnel of the twin tunnel project taken up in 1983 from the Srisailam reservoir side.
Over 50 workers were engaged in the tunnel work being executed with the help of a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The irrigation authorities from Nagarkurnool who rushed to the tunnel were overseeing the rescue operation with the help of the police.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy expressed shock at the accident and instructed Minister for Irrigation N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Advisor Aditya Nath Das and other top officials of the irrigation department to rush to the accident site. He also directed the District Collector, police, fire services and HYDRAA authorities to rush to the site to speed up the rescue work.
Before flying to the accident site by a chopper Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy said he had the information that all the workers had come out safely and only five were trapped inside as water and mud had piled up due to the caving in of the tunnel roof.
After a gap of about five years, work on the SLBC (Alimineti Madhava Reddy Project – AMRP) project has resumed on February 18 as the State Government has decided to complete the tunnel work by December 2026 to realise the objective of providing irrigation facility to about 4 lakh acres in the combined Nalgonda district and also provide drinking water to the fluoride-hit areas, about 200 villages, in the district.
The work agency has resumed the work by arresting the seepage of water and taking up the lining of the tunnel completed so far to prevent any chances of collapse.
The project was given administrative approval for ₹2,292 crore in 2005 and its estimated cost was revised to ₹3,153 crore in 2017 and it was revised again in 2024 to ₹4,637 crore. as per the revised estimates. About ₹2,646 crore has been spent on the project works so far.
According to the project authorities, the total length of the twin tunnels was 44 km to draw 30 tmc ft assured water from Srisailam reservoir and of the total tunnel length 9.559 km tunnel work was pending.
