Hyderabad, March 6 -- An official team from Union jal shakti ministry headed by its secretary VL Kantha Rao is expected to visit the major irrigation project in Polavaram being built on Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh's Eluru district to personally review the progress of works, people familiar with the matter said. The visit comes in the wake of several concerns raised by an independent panel of foreign experts and Central Water Commission (CWC) engineers during their inspections of the project works in January and February. The experts flagged technical flaws in the construction of diaphragm wall (D-wall) and the proposed earth-cum-rock-fill (ECRF) dam.Instead of a formal cessation of works, the experts recommended conforming to a slew of technical suggestions ahead of the project's execution. "They focussed on ensuring the structural integrity of the dam, which is tasked with withstanding extreme flood pressure, as was witnessed in August 2020," an irrigation department official said. The diaphragm wall forms the foundation for the ECRF dam structure and is considered vital for ensuring its stability. "The contracting agency has already begun procuring large boulders from nearby hillocks to facilitate rapid execution of the dam works once the D-wall is fully completed. He said 90% of the construction of the D-wall has been completed and the remaining work is expected to be completed by the end of March. Meanwhile, Centre for Liberty, a civil society organisation headed by retired IPS officer AB Venkateshwar Rao on Monday wrote a letter to chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, highlighting several technical and execution failures that threaten the structural integrity of the Polavaram project. "The official records reveal a pattern of 'continuous' execution failures, unauthorised design deviations, and critical neglect of safety recommendations," Rao said in the letter. Quoting the issues raised by the independent experts and CWC engineers, the former IPS officer said the D-wall has suffered severe quality lapses, such as "daily bleeding" during concreting, a defect that creates vertical channels and affects impermeability. He said the international experts had termed the quality "unsatisfactory" and recommended Cross-Wall Sonic Logging (CSL) tests wherever possible. He alleged that portions of the D-wall were plastered to conceal exposed concrete and wide gaps between panels. "As per the observation of the panel of experts, the contractor had allegedly cut off the elevation of wall from originally designed 19 metres to 18 metres due to poor quality concrete," he said. Rao also pointed out that the upstream guide bund of the spillway, damaged in 2023, has not been prioritised for repair and the experts strongly recommended urgent reconstruction. "Neglecting this while proceeding with upstream cofferdam closure and Gap-II earthworks could endanger flood discharge safety," he said. The retired IPS officer also informed that the approach channel excavation was reduced to five lakh cubic metres in January 2026, as against 38.55 lakh cubic metres documented in June 2025. He further pointed out that the CWC, in a December 17, 2025 letter, reportedly objected to raising the trench level in Gap-I from 23 metres to 24 metres without justification, as this could compromise foundation stability. The Centre for Liberty demanded that the government constitute an independent international review panel, appoint an independent project management consultant, ensure 100% quality control supervision by a global agency, go slow with ECRF dam works until bleeding-related studies are completed and issue a white paper fixing accountability for design changes and other failures....