The Water Resources department of Maharashtra (Formerly known as the Irrigation Department) is operational since the last 150 years and is mainly responsible for Development and maintenance of the water retaining structures developed mainly to serve the purpose of irrigation of the farmland through various facilitations.

Post failure measures, Investigation and remedial measures for Khandeshwar wadi madhyam prakalp.

A certain event of occurrence of failure was observed by the Dam observation engineers on the site. Which was observed to be progressed to a development of complete shear plane and ultimately the sudden subsidence showcasing the failure of the 120m long dam section. The reasons of this failure was unknown and so the remedy could not be properly identified immediately for this case.

This was taken to serious concerns by the superior authorities of the Water resources department of Maharashtra, and immediate actions were followed towards the safety measures of the people downstream side of the dam. Prof. Dr. Abhinav Mane (Our Managing Director) was immediately invited by the authorities towards preliminary inspections and to know the remedy for this structure. As Provatsalya consulting services Pvt Ltd commitment towards the Precise, Innovative and Prompt services, Dr. Abhinav reached the site within 7 hours of invitation. Upon visit it was understood that the release of the water stored in the reservoir was of immediate requirement to prevent further destressing of the dam. It was suggested and agreed upon by the authorized engineers to break the spillway and allow the water to pass through it safely.

Further, to identify the reasons behind the failure, a comprehensive geotechnical investigation comprising the boreholes and trial pits, within failed as well as the remaining portion of the Dam. The investigation outcomes were properly directed and the possible causes were identified as the aging of the Dam, availability of the compressive fine grained subsoil beneath the failed portion etc.. A small scaled model study was also performed to validate the outcomes of the investigations. Based on these Investigations a remedial solution was also provided by CDO (Central Design Organization) Nasik to replace the foundation layer either by suitable fill or to provide stone columns in the foundation soil of the failed portion of the Dam.

The investigation performed did provide the exact reasons for the failure and so the CDO could focus on the specific remedial measures for the same. This impacted in a better sense to reduce the overall cost of remedy of the Dam as well as ascertained improvements so that the Dam will serve for a longer duration. Small scaled model studies with similar site constraints was also the very innovative approach done by ProVatsalya which was very helpful in validation of the investigation results. Such methods may also be utilized in many other civil engineering projects to serve various aspects of behavior of the structure.