Sambalpur: The Odisha government will construct five additional spillways to ensure the safety of the Hirakud dam on the Mahanadi river here and has roped in the Tata Group for help in this regard.

The government will construct the additional spillways for an estimated Rs 369.53 crore.

Officials of Tata Projects and Hirakud dam signed an agreement in this regard at Ashok Nivas here on Friday.

Tata Projects vice-president Goutam Saha and Basanta Kumar Rout, executive engineer on behalf of the state government, signed the agreement in presence of officials of various departments of Hirakud dam.

The project will be completed within 30 months. The state government has created a separate spillway division under the leadership of Rout for the project .

The spillways would be constructed at the left dyke of the dam and its water would reach the Mahanadi river via Gujatala, Rout told The Telegraph, adding that the government had taken up the huge project for the safety of the dam according to the recommendations of the Central Water Commission.

The spillways, when completed, would have capacity to discharge an additional seven lakh cusecs of water.

The present discharge capacity of the dam is 15 lakh cusecs through its 64 sluice gates and 34 crest gates.

According to calculations and amid the changing climatic conditions, the dam should be able to discharge 24 lakh cusecs of water during peak periods for its safety, Rout said.

Tata's technical experts have already reached Hirakud and the work will start very soon, Rout said.

The process of land acquisition for the project has been initiated. The project will affect 1,415 persons belonging to 716 families of First Gate Colony, Rerolling Mill Colony, Cable Colony, Premnagar, Laxminagar, Gandhinagar and Gujatalpur Colony.

According to special land acquisition officer Sitanshu Tripathy, the displaced people have agreed in the gram sabha meeting to move to new colonies. They will be provided land at Talpali, Salbandh, Basantpur and Garmunda areas and also building materials for construction of houses. A special Land acquisition officer will be appointed for dealing exclusively with the project.