Nagpur: Henceforth there will be no water leakage from the 105- year old Gorewada Lake Gates!!!.
After successfully completing difficult tasks like yearly ESR cleaning, plugging several difficult underground leakages and rehabilitation of Seminary Hills MBR, now OCW’s in-house Maintenance Team has given a ‘new Life’ to the 35- Years old profusely leaking Gorewada Dam Gates (popularly known as Godbole Gate’s).
It may be mentioned here, the 35 Years – old – Godbole Gate had their seals in completely dilapidated condition due to which water was leaking profusely from the gate seals, which were totally replaced and now the gates are completely maintained and rehabilitated by OCW.
Experts informed that it was initially proposed to construct a new gated weir (another Godbole Type gate) on the downstream and dismantle the existing gated structure. This was proposed at an additional cost of Rs.5-6 Crores which was to be borne by NMC. However later the OCW-NESL decided to repair & rehabilitate the existing gates at a comparatively lesser cost by OCW’s in-house maintenance team there by saving huge amount to NMC exchequer.
The Gorewada Lake was constructed in 1911 to source water for first 16 MLD WTP for Nagpur city. Today it has live storage of 3.19 Mm3 between FTL (Full Tank Level) of 3.5.65 meters and GSL (Gate sill level) of 312.00 meters. The lake was once known as Sita Gondi, as it was said to have been constructed by a woman Sita Gondin during the Gond period.
“The lake was later named after Gorewada village since the water supply scheme was constructed near it. The 11 sq mile (17,702.74 sq mt) lake’s catchment area is double that of Ambazari lake. The plan to develop the lake into a reservoir and establish a water supply scheme was drawn up in 1910. NMC, which was a municipal council at that time, decided to develop Gorewada scheme to solve the water crisis prevailing in the city at that time.
Until then, Ambazari Lake had been the only source of drinking water for the city since Gandhisagar Lake (then called Shukrawari talav) was polluted and inadequate. Ambazari was constructed during Bhonsle period, some 238 years ago, but developed as drinking water reservoir under the British rule in 1872, under the Binni Scheme.
In 1982, at the time of augmentation of Nagpur water supply scheme (Pench – Phase I) it was decided to source water for additional 117 MLD capacity WTP from Pench Irrigation Project and use Gorewada Dam as balancing reservoir.
In order to achieve this, water was conveyed from Navegaon-Khairy reservoir through the right bank canal (RBC) and then pumped into Gorewada Tank, before sourcing it to new water treatment plant. Presently this RBC has also been replaced by 2.3m line laid from Navegaon-Khairy Dam via Mahadula to Gorewada lake.
In order to facilitate this arrangement and to cater for increased design discharge due to changed hydrology, a new gated weir with 4 Nos. of 10m x 3.65 m size Godbole type automatic gates and an intake arrangement with 3 Nos. of 1.2 m x 1.2 m size sluice gates and trash racks was constructed. When further augmentation schemes were implented- i.e. Pench Phase II in 1994 & Pench Phase III, stage I in 2004 the arrangement of Gorewada Lake as balancing reservoir was retained, while an arrangement for directly supplying pumped water to WTP location was also implemented.
Recently taking advantage of the low water level of the Gorewada Lake, the rehabilitation work of the leaking and dilapidated Godbole gate seals was undertaken from 24th of May, 2017.
The work was carried out round the clock (in three different shifts), so as to complete before the onset of already predicted early rainfall.
At the Godbole Gates the following works has been carried out:
1. The “musical note type nitrile rubber seal” of all the four gates has been renewed
2. The base of the gate seal has been renewed with the Stainless Steel plate
3. All the Metal strip and MS Bolts & nuts to hold the seal in place has been renewed with Stainless Steel (SS) nuts & bolts.
4. The rusted part on Gates surface & body has been scrubbed off and Epoxy coated
5. The damaged concrete at the sides and bottom of the gate has been repaired with M30 concrete
6. The gate lifting wire rope pulley arrangement brackets were properly grouted , contreted & strengthened.
7. The Bridge structure has been epoxy coated
The complete rehabilitation work was carried out by OCW’s own maintenance team under guidance of CEO Mr Sanjoy Roy and the command of GM Mr Praveen Sharan, Safety Manager Mr Amit Gedam, Mechanical Maintenance Head, Mr Pradyuman Verma, Civil Engineer Mr Altaf and his expert maintenance team members.
