HYDERABAD: The Kaleshwaram project also proposes to provide drinking water facility for Hyderabad and Secunderabad cities.
Alternative sites, i.e alignment-II for Medigadda barrage, alignment-II for Annaram barrage and alignment-III for Sundilla barrage have been preferred over other alignments and may be better due to no submergence of forest land, lesser pumping canal length and less land acquisition, respectively.
The boundary of the project is near Maharashtra state and as per the information, about 302 hectares of area is likely to be submerged in Maharashtra.
The total land requirement is about 32,000 hectares out of which 2,866 hectares is forest land. The total submergence area is about 13,706 hectares. In addition to Medigadda barrage, two more barrages between Medigadda and Sripada Yellampally project are to be constructed, one at Annaram and the other at Sundilla.
The total length of water canal system is about 1,832 km. Total estimated cost of the project is about `80,499.1 crore. It was proposed to be completed in three years. “The EAC after detailed discussions felt that the observations of CWC and techno-economic feasibility of the project are to be obtained and produced by project proponent (PP).
Hence the EAC does not recommend the project for scoping clearance and suggests that in-principle clearance of CWC be submitted before the project is considered for scoping clearance,” minutes of the EAC said.