HYDERABAD: The stage is set for release of water to around 10 lakh acres under the first phase of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) from the Kharif season, as the wet run in the crucial Package 6 of the project was successful on Wednesday.
The trial run for the release of water commenced on April 17 in Package 6 and after completion of the required checking, the officials released water from the surge pool to Nandi Medaram reservoir on Wednesday, after Smita Sabharwal, Secretary to CM, performed puja. With this, Godavari water would be lifted and diverted to irrigation tanks form there to around 10 lakh acres in June/July, when Godavari receives plenty of water during the season of floods.
The officials conducted two wet runs on one pump on Wednesday and both tests were successful near Nandi Medaram. The first test run lasted for 30 minutes. It consumed 115 MW power during the test run though rating of pumps is 124.4 MW. When head or reservoir level is more, the power consumption will be less, according to officials.
“This is a historic day. The test run is completely successful,” CM’s OSD (Irrigation) Sridhar Rao Deshpande said at the surge pool site.
The 125 MW pump has a capacity of 3,200 cusecs. With the successful completion of test run of first pump to lift Godvari waters to a height of 105 metres, the official declared that everything went as per their plan. So far, Telangana has experience of lifting water up to a maximum height of 85 metres. In Kaleshwaram, the government proposed to lift water to maximum height of 120 metres. The State government also conducted Lidar survey before taking up the project and finalised the design.
‘A happy occasion’
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao performed Bhumi Puja for the Kaleshwaram project on May 2, 2016 at Medigadda. It is a happy occasion as the wet run is successful, he said.
“With the use of heavy capacity pumps in Kaleshwaram project, Telangana becomes the only State in the country, and also the Asian continent, to use such a heavy motors,” the Chief Minister said.
Rao recalled that they had meticulously planned for resolving the irrigation water problem in the State and confirmed that water availability in Godavari is only at the confluence of Pranahita-Godavari at Kaleshwaram. “We have no other option but to lift water from Kaleshwaram to provide water to a total of 40 lakh acres,” Rao said.
“With the blessings of the god, our plans have been executed properly,” Rao said while congratulating the officials and engineers who worked on the project.
Former Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao too congratulated the officials and greeted the Chief Minister for the success of wet run. Several Ministers, including A Indra Karan Reddy and Singireddy Niranjan Reddy, too expressed delight over the success of wet run.
Meanwhile, TS Transco and Genco chairman D Prabhakar Rao said that it was a pleasure for the power utility to provide power to highest capacity irrigation motors in the country. He said that they would rededicate to provide power to Kaleshwaram without any interruption in future. He said that plans were ready to provide 5,000 MW power to Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme with an estimated cost of Rs 2,890 crore. The Transco constructed 15 dedicated sub-stations at 15 pump houses to pump water through 80 pumps of the Kaleshwaram.
Wet run will also be conducted for three more pumps at Package 6 on Thursday.