Markook pump-house takes water to 621 m above MSL

Its executing agency completes 9 pump-houses in four years

As its pump-house near Markook village in Siddipet district became operational on Friday, the Kaleshwaram Life Irrigation Project (KLIP) has reached yet another unique milestone in the annals of lift irrigation projects as the pumping facility delivers water at a height of 621 meters above the mean sea level (MSL).

Although the full reservoir level (FRL) of Kondapochammasagar near Pamulaparthy village is 618 metres above MSL, the Markook pump house with 6×34 MW capacity motors is designed to deliver water to a higher level that is to ensure gravity flow of the river Godavari water into the balancing reservoir. The 15 tmc ft storage capacity reservoir serves over 2.85 lakh acres ayacut in nine constituencies besides meeting the drinking water needs in the command area as also in Hyderabad.

According to both the Irrigation Department officials as also of the pump-house executing agency, MEIL, the pumping facility takes water to the highest extent above MSL. Citing the examples of major water lifting systems across the globe, the agency officials said lifting of water to 621 meters is not done even in the Colorado lift irrigation project in the USA and the Great Man-made River in Libya. Closer home, water is lifted to a maximum of about 370 meters above MSL in Handri-Neeva project in Andhra Pradesh.

Out of a total of 22 pump-houses designed in Kaleshwaram project, the infrastructure major MEIL has bagged works pertaining to 15 pump-houses and completed nine of them in less than four years. “Nine pump-houses with a total capacity of 3,767 MW getting operational in such a short span in the execution of irrigation projects is a record in itself,” director of MEIL B. Srinivas Reddy said on the occasion.

Kaleshwaram project would altogether have105 motors in its 22 pump-houses with a capacity of 4,680 MW for lifting and conveying 2 tmc ft of Godavari water a day from Medigadda and the 17 pump-houses being executed by the agency would have 90 motors. “Of them, the nine completed pump-houses have 63 motors of different capacities ranging from 27 MW to 139 MW each,” the agency executives explained.

“Intense monitoring by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and supervision of the Irrigation Department officials with the critical support of electro-mechanical engineering giants such as BHEL, Andritz, ABB, Xylem, Crompton Greaves and others have helped us execute the pump-houses, including the one known as underground wonder and engineering marvel at Laxmipur constructed 470 feet below ground-level (the starting point), in the record time,” Mr. Srinivas Reddy said.