The Markook pump house, the last and vital one, is inaugurated by Telangana Chief Minister Sri K. Chandrashekhar Rao today and released the water to Kondapochammasagar. The is yet another milestone in the multi-stage Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme(KLIS). After performing the Chandi yagam by Sri China Jeeyar Swamy, he inaugurated the pump house and reservoir. MEIL has built this prestigious reservoir and pump house with six machines with 27megawatts capacity each. With this 3763 mega watts pumping capacity operationalised.
Infra giant, Megha Engineering Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) outperformed its performance by completing all the critical works of Kaleshwaram Project, a multi-purpose lift irrigation project taken up by Telangana Government in record time. The project intends to make Telangana as ‘Food Bowl’ using Godavari water. While completing the majority of pumping stations for this ambitious project in the shortest time of 4 years, MEIL proved its mettle in terms of its engineering and management capacities. A total of 22 pumping stations with 96 machines having a total capacity of 4680 MWs constructed for this mega project, a first of its kind in the world. Out of the total, MEIL built 15 pumping stations with 89 machines having a capacity of 3840 MW. The notable thing is that all these pumping houses have been operationalised and pumping water. The determination of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandra Shekhar Rao and his regular, intense monitoring along with the irrigation department officials, coupled with the critical support extended by giant electro-mechanical engineering companies like BHEL, Aandriz, Zylum ABB, Crompton Greeves, VEGG, etc., contributed in achieving this record-breaking performance. Construction works for this world’s biggest multi-purpose lift irrigation project initiated four years back. And within three years, all the pumping stations in Link -1 and Link-2 have been operationalised.
3763 MWs capacity in record time!
As the pump house in Package-14 came into operationalised recently, the total pumping capacity utilisation has reached to 3763 MWs, signifying a record in the engineering history. It has also got the distinction of lifting water to a height of 600 feet that is a record in the irrigation sector’s history. The Colorado lift irrigation project in the USA and the Great Manmade River in Libya considered as the biggest lift irrigation project in the world. Still, Handri- Neeva Project in Andhra Pradesh has surpassed them later. Given the size and capacity to serve in multiple ways, Kaleshwaram Project has now become the world’s largest lift irrigation project. The pace of project works has put even the engineering experts in surprise. Nowhere in the world, a project with such a gigantic size completed in such a short period. When the construction of reservoirs and canals itself taking decades, the Kaleshwaram project, with all its complex electro-mechanical underground works could be completed in just four years.
MEIL completed the construction of 15 pumping stations with a total capacity of 3840 MWs that could lift 2 TMCs of water per day. While 9 pumping stations with a total capacity of 3763 MWs already operationalised, four more with a capacity of 35.4 MWs are ready for operation, and two pumping stations with a capacity of 41 MWs are still in the completion stage.
Most of these pumping stations with the highest capacities are constructed in underground. Gayathri (Package-8), Annapurna (Package-10), Ranganayakasagar Project (Package-11), and Mallannasagar (Package-12) are some of the big underground pump houses constructed for this project. The surge pool and additional surge pools of the Gayathri pump house are the biggest surge pools in the world. For this pump house with an area of 84753.2 sq.fts, nearly 2.3 Cubic meters of soil excavated below the ground.
Link-1 and Link-2 pump houses are the most critical components of this project. As part of Link-1, three pump houses, Lakshmi (Medigadda), Saraswathi (Annaram), and Parvathi (Sundilla) have been constructed. These three pump houses with 28 machines are having a total capacity of 1120 MegaWatts, and they help in bringing Pranahitha water into the Godavari, to fill Sripadasagar Yellampalli Reservoir and also reverse the flow of Godavari River from lower part to the upper part.
An underground wonder : Gayathri pump house
Gayathri (Package-8) pump house is the largest underground pump house in the world, constructed 470 feet below the ground with a huge pumping capacity. Considered now as an underground engineering wonder, it has the world’s largest surge pool and twin tunnels. The 7 machines with a total capacity of 139 MWs could lift 2 TMCs of water per day. These machines designed and developed based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), genuinely reflecting the government’s mission of ‘Make in India’. The underground surge pool in this pump house is taller than Eiffel Tower, and each one could lift 3000 cusecs of water to a height of 111 meters. It is being hailed as an engineering marvel created by MEIL, taking support from BHEL.
“Not only in terms of each machine but even in terms of total capacity, it is the world’s largest pump house. One can imagine the size of this pump house constructed 470 feet below the ground with 327 meters of length 25 meters of width, and 65 meters of height. While the Kaleshwaram project requires 4680 MWs of total capacity to lift 2 TMCs of water per day, MEIL itself established 89 machines with a total capacity of 3840 MWs, that indicates the role being played by the company for this prestigious project of Telangana”, said B. Srinivas Reddy, Director, MEIL.
Ranganayakasagar with the second largest capacity
Ranganayakasagar of Package-11 has four machines, each with a capacity of 134 MW. This pump house with a total pumping capacity of 536 MWs is the second-largest pump house in the world, after the Gayathri pump house. B. Srinivas Reddy said that “For MEIL, it is an opportunity to take part in this prestigious project of the Telangana Government. We feel it as a lifetime honour for our company to be able to contribute to such a noble mission of fulfilling the age-old dream of Telangana people in terms of utilising Godavari water and bringing hitherto barren lands into irrigation. We also feel proud to complete this project in time, using sophisticated technology by associating with the world’s best engineering companies. We could complete this project in shortest time only because of the determination and regular monitoring of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandra Shekhar Rao as he directly involved and provided guidance to interact with officials on every aspect of the project and encouraged us a lot…”
By establishing such big pump houses with such highest capacity, that too for a lift irrigation project, the Irrigation Department of Telangana also created a world record, as there are no such big pump houses anywhere in the world.
A massive power infrastructure
MEIL has established a massive power supply system for the Kaleshwaram project, which is almost equal to one-fourth of the entire power supply system of Telangana state that has a capacity of 15,087 MWs covering 33 districts. It is nearly similar to the whole power infrastructure of all the seven north-eastern states of India.
Telangana Government recently decided to further increase the pumping capacity of the Kaleshwaram Project by one more TMC per day. As part of this, a total of 15 new machines, each with a pumping capacity of 40 MWs, are being established in Lakshmi, Saraswathi, and Parvathi Pump Houses of Link-1 component. This work of installing an additional 600 MW capacity also assigned to MEIL, which is being implemented in association with Zylum and Andriz companies. State Government is also in the process of finalising works related to additional TMC water from Mid Maneru to Mallannasagar.
