Nearly three months after an unprecedented flood in Godavari submerged the Kannepalli (Medigadda) and Kasipeta (Annaram) pumphouses of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP), the contract agency and the authorities of the Irrigation department have successfully revived and run one of the pumps of Annaram on Saturday.

According to the irrigation engineers working for the project, they have operated one of the 8 pumps of 40 megawatt capacity each installed to lift 2 tmc ft water a day successfully after reviving it and all parameters were normal. The pump has lifted designed discharge of 656 cusecs water and the remaining pumps too would be run one by one, all by the month-end, advisor (Irrigation) to Government K. Penta Reddy and Engineer-in-Chief N. Venkateshwarlu said.

They stated that efforts were on to revive the Kannepalli pump house too at the earliest by running at least one pump by the month-end and the works in that direction were progressing briskly. Kannepalli pump house has a total of 11 pumps.

In addition to the pumps to lift 2 tmc ft water a day, the Kannepalli and Kasipeta pump houses have the arrangement for 6 and 4 more pump each, respectively, for lifting the additional one tmc ft water a day, for which the State government is pursuing the matter with the Godavari River Management Board, Central Water Commission and Ministry of Jal Shakti.

The two pump houses were submerged in the huge flood in the river in the wee hours of July 15 and even dewatering could not be taken up for about three weeks due to consistent flood.

Meanwhile, Special Chief Secretary (Irrigation) Rajat Kumar complimented the engineers of the department and the work agency for reviving the Annaram pump house at the earliest as assured in the Assembly recently. Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar also expressed satisfaction over the running of first pump as part of revival of the two pump houses.

Officials stated that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and Minister for Finance and Health T. Harish Rao complimented the engineers for successfully reviving the first pump of the two submerged pump houses in a short period.

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Printable version | Oct 8, 2022 9:00:35 pm | https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/engineers-revive-first-pump-at-submerged-pumphouses-of-kaleshwaram/article65985575.ece