MP: People in 18 villages shifted as soil starts slipping from under-construction dam on Karam river

Residents of 12 villages in Dhar district and six villages in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh were shifted to safer places on Friday after authorities found that soil has started slipping from an under-construction dam on the Karam river, a senior official said here.

It was a precautionary measure, said Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) Home Dr Rajesh Rajora.

An alert had been sounded for downstream villages a day before when water seepage was reported from the dam. The dam's reservoir filled up with water for the first time this monsoon as rain battered the region.

The 590-meter-long and 52-meter-high dam, a medium-level irrigation project, has 15 million cubic meter (MCM) water in its reservoir, ACS Rajora said.

''As a precaution, the authorities have shifted people in 12 villages of Dhar district and six villages of Khargone district to safer places and relief camps," he added.

A team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Emergency Response Force (SDERF) besides two helicopters and an Army column have been put on stand-by, Rajora said.

Senior officials including divisional commissioner, inspector general, district collector, superintendent of police, engineering-in-chief and chief engineer of the Water Resources Department among others were camping at the site, he said.

Madhya Pradesh Water Resources Minister Tulsiram Silawat and Industries Minister Rajvardhan Singh Dattigaon were also at the dam site to oversee repair work, officials said.

Earlier in the morning, Dhar collector Pankaj Jain had said that efforts to control the seepage from the dam were unsuccessful and the seepage had in fact increased.

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