Telangana: KCR inaugurates `80k cr Kaleshwaram project
New Delhi: Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Friday inaugurated the Rs 80,190 crore Kaleshwaram irrigation project at its starting point in Medigadda (Jayshankar Bhupalapally) district of the state. A historic landmark for Telangana, the project's completion also marks Rao fulfilling one of his election promises. The iconic Medigadda Barrage was completed in just 24 months.
Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh were present on the occasion when the Medigadda barrage was opened.
Designed to bring drinking water and irrigation to the parched areas of Telangana, a total of about 225 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water will be drawn through it from the Godavari river basin.
The project, which would involve building reservoirs at various places, is expected to irrigate 18.24 lakh acre of land in the state with 165 TMC of water, provide 56 TMC of drinking water and supply another 10 TMC for industrial purposes.
Originally called Pranahita-Chevella project, which was undertaken by the Congress-ruled erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, it was redesigned, extended and rechristened Kaleshwaram project after Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) came to power in Telangana in 2014. The cost of the works too went up from a little over Rs 40,300 crore to Rs 80,000 crore after the redesigning.
Previously, water was to be drawn from the Godavari river by constructing a barrage at Tummidihatti village in Adilabad district at a cost of Rs 40,300 crore (under the original plan) to irrigate 16.14 lakh acre. Now, the same is to be done at Medigadda village in Jayshankar-Bhoopalpally district. As per officials of the state's irrigation department, once fully completed, the project would solve the issue of supplying water across Telangana to farmers for irrigation.
According to a press note, the Kaleshwaram project one of the world's largest irrigation projects that has been undertaken. Megha Engineering Infrastructure Limited (MEIL), is one of the other major construction companies that is also working on the project. Once fully completed, places like Karimnagar, Rajanna Sircilla, Siddipet, Medak, Yadadri, Nalgonda, Sangareddy, Nizamabad, Jagtial, etc, across the state, would be irrigated.
Under the projects, 3 barrages and 19 reservoirs would be constructed for the storage capacity of 141 TMC, and about 4992.47 mega watts (MW) is required for its functioning. The entire length of the water supply route will be 1,832 kilometers. After the inauguration, MEIL MD PV Krishna Reddy explained about the aspects of the project to Governor and the CMs present on the occasion. While explaining the features of the pumphouse, MEIL official said, "Medigadda pump house is constructed in a way that each one unit with a capacity of 40 MWs would lift 60 cusecs of water."
