Dam can withstand tremors, says SSNL
Dispelling speculations that the Sardar Samovar Narmada Nigam Limited at Kevadia Colony has become a potential hazard since the region recorded seismic activity on Sunday, SSNL officials and dam engineers on Monday asserted that the SSNL dam structure is infallible unless the SSNL is the epicentre of an earthquake.

Even as Narmada Bachao Andolan activists raised an hue and cry over the incident, SSNL officials thoroughly scanned the dam on Monday and confirmed that the dam structure has not developed even a single fissure. SSNL chief engineer at the site, P.M. Patel, who checked the dam with one geologist and two civil engineers said considering the fact that the dam survived the devastating earthquake of 2001 and that of Sunday, which was of much low intensity, there is nothing to worry.

He added that on January 26, 2001, when the massive earthquake rattled the state, at the dam site, tremors measuring 5.3 on the Richter Scale were recorded. "Even that could not inflict any damage to the dam structure," he said. He asserted that the dam can withstand any tremor up to at least 6.5 on the Richter Scale occurring in a radius outside 10 km below and 16 km away from the site.

While NBA’s M.K. Sukumar believed that Sunday’s tremors could have been dam-induced, SSNL dam modeler Nandkumar Kavlanekar claimed, "The dam has been designed after studying all dams of the world and all lapses of those dams have been taken into consideration," while SSNL’s managing director S.K. Mohapatra added that SSNL, which is the world’s largest concrete dam structure, has been studied thoroughly for seven years between 1977 and 1985 before a go ahead was given to the state government to start construction.

The Dam safety committee, Dam review committee appointed by the World Bank and Narmada control authority had studied the safety parameters of the dam before approving design of the dam, SSNL maintained.

Republished from The Asian Age