Land acquisition for Thumbay dam dominates MCC review meeting

In a review meeting of the progress of various developmental works in Mangalore City Corporation limits here on Tuesday, he said that the land acquisition process could be delayed as the Land Acquisition Act 2013 would be enforced from January 1. This might delay the construction of the dam, he said.

The Executive Engineer in charge of the Thumbay vented dam work said that the civil work of the vented dam will be completed by May 2014. The delay in sanctioning the remaining fund is delaying the work progress, the engineer said.

He said that the water could be stored only upto four metres in the dam as against the capacity of seven metres, until the land acquisition process was completed in the submerging area.

Deputy Commissioner A B Ibrahim confirmed that the MCC had not yet started the process of land acquisition for the second vented dam and after January 1, it would become nearly impossible.

MLA J R Lobo suggested looking for an alternate method to increase the water storage capacity in the dam, without acquiring the land around it.

The district-in-charge minister instructed the authorities to work on the idea of constructing temporary check dams on rivulets that join the river, so as to ensure that water does not flow in other direction.