Pump houses equipped to handle huge inflows, says TS irrigation expert

Hyderabad: State Advisor on Lift Irrigation Schemes K Penta Reddy on Friday allayed fears over damage to the pump houses of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme (KLIS) which are flooded due to heavy inflows into Godavari Riverand its tributaries. Terming the heavy rains and floods as a natural disaster which occurs once in 100 years, he stated that submergence of pump houses was natural under these unprecedented circumstances.

In a statement issued here, Penta Reddy informed that Godavari River was receiving unprecedented inflows which led to submergence of the pump houses at Kannepalli and Annaram under the Kaleshwaram project.

He assured that the floods cannot damage the pump house which was equipped to handle huge inflows on a regular basis.

He added that the pump houses of both lift irrigation schemes and hydel power plants were prone to flooding across the world. They are constructed to withstand such eventualities. The Srisalam hydel power plant was submerged twice in 1998 and 2008 in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

Similarly, the Kalwakurthy pump house also got flooded twice earlier. The Koteshwara hydel power plant in Uttarkhand during 2009 and Chuthak hydel power station in Jammu and Kashmir in 2004, among others also got submerged.

Currently, all of them are functioning properly.

"Such floods cannot cause any permanent structural damage. After flood water recedes, the pumps which are submerged will be dried and refitted to continue the operations. If needed, we will repair or replace a few electric and electronic equipment. We operationalised both the Srisailam hydel power plant and the Kalwakurthy pump house within a short time," Penta Reddy said.

He urged people not to get perturbed unnecessarily or politicise such an issue without being aware of the technicalities.