Governor ESL Narasimhan to inaugurate Kaleshwaram today

Hyderabad: Touted as the world's largest multi-stage irrigation project, Kaleshwaram on river Godavari is all set to be inaugurated by Governor ESL Narasimhan in the presence of AP and Maharashtra Chief Ministers YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Devendra Fadnavis, respectively on Friday.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar will perform homam and special pujas in the morning at the project site in Jayashankar Bhupalapally district on the border of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.

Amid tight security, the TS government arranged five choppers to ply the chief guests and officials to the project site from Hyderabad. Irrigation officials from three states and representatives from the banks, which provided loans for the project, will also take part in the ceremony.

The Rs 80,500-crore lift irrigation project works have been taken up in May 2016. Within three years, the construction of major barrages and installation of giant pumpsets were near completion and the reservoir works were under progress.

The Mallanna Sagar reservoir with 50 TMC capacity was the biggest one among 20 water reservoirs which will quench drinking and irrigation needs of South and North Telangana districts.

The project comprises 1,832 km water supply route, 1,531 km gravity canal, 203 km tunnel route, 20 lifts, 19 pumphouses and 19 reservoirs with storage capacity of 141 TMC.

The project required nearly 5,000 MW of electricity to pump 2 TMC of water every day in the first phase. The requirement will go up to 7,152 MW for lifting 3 TMC from next year.

The project is a combination of 20 new reservoirs, 20 lifts and 19 pumphouses. Works on key barrages — Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla — are almost completed.

The project has been designed to provide irrigation facility to 45 lakh acres of land covering 50 per cent of the total irrigated areas of one crore acres in the next three years.

Kaleshwaram will also assuage the growing drinking needs of Greater Hyderabad. Once the project is completed, it will provide 240 TMC of water of which 169 TMC will be utilised for irrigation, 30 TMC for Hyderabad drinking water, 16 TMC for industrial use and 10 TMC for meeting the needs in villages en route. Evaporation losses would be around 15 TMC.

KCR had conceived the prestigious Kaleshwaram by redesigning the Pranahitha–Chevella project which has been taken up by the united AP Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy during his regime.

Officials said the Kaleshwaram project is the first major lift-based project of India which will start drawing 2 TMC of water every day from Godavari river.