Earth caves in at Hulikere tunnel

The tunnel was constructed in 1931 when Visvesvaraya canal was laid to irrigate

The Hulikere tunnel across Visvesvaraya Canal from the Krishnarajasagar Dam in the district has caved in for the second time in four-and-a-half months causing moments of anxiousness among farmers on Thursday morning.

According to an estimate a ditch, 15 feet long, 15 feet wide and 70 feet deep, has been created on a private field at Hulikere in Mandya taluk.

President of Hulikere Agriculture Service Cooperative Society Guruswamy said he heard the sound of the flow of water, which was unusual as the water flows beneath, when he went to the fields at 5 am on Thursday.

The mud has been washed away as 2,250 cusecs of water is flowing in the canal and there is force. The tunnel has caved in on March 15 also, from inside.

Irrigation department officials assured the farmers that water would not be stopped.

Executive engineer of Cauvery Neervari Nigam Vijaykumar said the earlier deputy commissioner Dr P C Jaffer had been urged to remove an irrigation pumpset and stop agriculture activity on the surface of the tunnel. “The same plea would be made before the present DC B N Krishnaiah”, he said.

The 2.8 km long tunnel is 3.75 m wide and has a 4.5 m deep arch and was constructed from June 1928 to October 1931 when the Visveswaraya canal was laid to irrigate fields in Mandya region when Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar was the Maharaja and Sir Mirza Ismail was the dewan.

The modernisation work was taken up in the late 1990s when K N Nagegowda was the irrigation minister.