Odisha Water Resources Minister Niranjan Pujari along with Union Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Secretary U P Singh, on Wednesday (13 February 2019) launched the fifth edition of the International Dam Safety Conference 2019 in Bhubaneswar, reports ANI.

The conference, held over two days, was part of the World Bank-aided Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) aimed at institutional strengthening.

The delegates participating at the event included more than 725 dam owners, policymakers, scientists, dam professionals and academics. 100 foreign experts representing around 30 countries also joined the conference.

As part of the conference, a number of important documents were released including three national guidelines, 16 emergency action plans and five operation and maintenance manuals.

"About 80 per cent of our large dams are over 25 years old. About 209 dams are over 100 years old and were built in an era when design practices and safety considerations were much below the current design and safety norms. Several of these dams may be experiencing distress and are in need of attention for ensuring their structural safety and operational efficiency," Pujari remarked.

DRIP has been the most important programme dealing with dam distress and was launched by the Centre in 2012 with a budget of Rs 2,100 crore for a span of six years. Following its success, the government increased the financial outlay of the project to Rs 3,466 crore with an extension of two years.

Now, the Centre wants to massively expand the programme to cover 700 dams, and has thus proposed two more phases of DRIP for 10 years with an estimated budget of Rs 10,221 crore.

Dam distress

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