Telangana Gets World’s Largest Lift Irrigation Project

The Telangana government on Friday unveiled Kaleshwaram large multi-phase and multipurpose irrigation project, touted as the world’s largest lift irrigation project being built at about Rs 80,000 crore, aimed at meeting over two-thirds of state’s agriculture, drinking and industrial water needs.

Built on fast-tract mode by the infrastructure firm Megha Engineering and Infrastructures (Meil), the world’s biggest engineering marvel was inaugurated by three chief ministers – K Chandrashekhar Rao of Telangana, Devendra Fadnavis of Maharashtra and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh.

The Kaleshwaram project on Godavari river surpasses the records of the world’s biggest lift irrigation projects till date – Colorado in the US and Great Man-Made River in Libya that took decades for completion.

Having laid the foundation stone for Kaleshwaram project in May 2016, Telangana could complete major components of the project involving construction of barrages and pump houses at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla in three years, while construction of the reservoirs and canals is currently on.

Targeted at irrigating around 45 lakh acres, the project involves three barrages, 20 lifts, 19 pump houses, 19 reservoirs with a total capacity of 145 TMCs, where 43 machines of the capacity of 40MW each pumping the water through 203 kms of tunnels and 1,531 kms of canals.

Meil has built the most critical part of the project involving the world’s biggest underground pump house 330 meters below the ground at Lakshmipur under package-8 that consists of five of the world’s biggest pumping machines with a capacity of 139MW each to pump 2 TMCs of water a day. This package also involved constructing the biggest surge pools and the largest power transmission infrastructure.

“We have successfully engineered the world’s biggest pumping scheme in India,” said Meil director B Srinivas Reddy, terming it a privilege and lifetime opportunity to bring the plan from print to reality. The company has proved its strength in diverse forte — from the construction of major pump houses and power transmission infrastructure to civil and electro-mechanical engineering works for pumping water this season, he said.

In all, Meil is executing about Rs 55,000 crore of works out of a total of Rs 80,000 crore works of Kaleshwaram where it will install 105 machines out of 120 machines and construct 17 out of 20 pump houses. The pumps and motors were being supplied by electromechanical companies such as BHEL, Andriz and Jailum, while Meil is taking up civil works.

The three-decade-old Meil, with interests spanning irrigation, power generation and supply, roads, defence equipment, civil aviation, electric vehicles manufacturing, renewable energy, hydrocarbons, and gas distribution, currently has operations spread across 16 Indian states and several countries including Bangladesh, Tanzania, Zambia, Kuwait and Jordan.

L&T Construction has built the 1.6 km long Medigadda barrage, which is estimated to lift 180TMCs of water a year from Godavari River to the Sripada Yellampalli project.

Once completed, Kaleshwaram project is estimated to consume 7,152MW of electricity to pump 3 TMCs of water a day and 4,992MW of electricity for pumping 2 TMCs of water in the first phase. A total of 43 machines with a capacity of 40MW each were erected at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla pump houses, consuming 1,720MW of power to lift the water.

The Telangana government on Friday unveiled parts of the Kaleshwaram project completed, involving civil and electro-mechanical works in Medigadda to Mid-Maneru link-1 and link-2. Pump houses at Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla, along with the world’s biggest pump at Lakshmipur were ready for pumping water. It is estimated to take another year or so to complete the entire project involving reservoirs and canals.

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Source: ET

Image Courtesy: The Hans India

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