Kaleshwaram project's pump houses submerged in Godavari floods

HYDERABAD: Due to the torrential rains that battered Telangana, the River Godavari is flowing high, even against the gravity, with the floodwaters inundating most important pump houses of world's largest irrigation project, Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme.

The pumphouses are flooded with the incessant rains in Telangana and Maharashtra. An inflow of 22,15,760 cusecs has entered into Medigadda barrage due to which all 85 gates of Lakshmi Barrage were opened and the flood water was released. While 14,77,975 cusecs of water entered into Annaram Saraswati Barrage where the authorities lifted the 62 gates releasing the water downstream. The authorities issued a red alert as the flood reached more than 17 metres at the Triveni confluence.

Meanwhile, heavy rains on Thursday resulted in the submersion of two major pump houses at the project due to the flood waters at Mahadevpur mandal of Bhupalapally district. The Kannepalli (Lakshmi) pump house and Annaram pump house, which can pump out two TMC feet of water per day, were submerged in the flood water due to which nine villages were inundated. The irrigation officials claim that it is a common occurrence that pump houses get submerged.

Structure perfect, motors submerged

Government advisor on lift irrigation projects, Penta Reddy said in a statement that the construction works of Kaleswaram were intact and made clear that only the motors and electrical equipment were submerged. He said there would be no problem with the motors as they would be dried and restored immediately after the flood receded.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Telangana Congress TPCC Revanth Reddy and BJP state president Bandi Sanjay slammed the KCR Government for its "ignorance". Revanth Reddy said that the Kaleshwaram project was inundated by floods. He said that now there was a situation where water could not be lifted from Kaleshwaram for another three to four years as all the lifts and pumps were submerged in water everywhere.

Revanth recalled that the Congress Government had previously decided on the Pranahita Chevella project with Rs. 38,000 crores and alleged that KCR increased it to Rs. 45,000 crores in the name of redesigning and resorted to corruption of Rs. 1 lakh crore.

BJP's Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay too launched fireworks on KCR through Twitter handle. He said Chief Minister KCR who boasted that he taught rivers to walk in Telangana and was the world's greatest engineering expert, should hang his head in shame. "Not only thousands of crores of rupees were wasted due to his administration, Manthani, and Dharmapuri constituencies are completely submerged today," Sanjay said adding that due to the failure of Chief Minister KCR, the Annaram pump house was submerged in water.

Bandi Sanjay said it was a shame that the "attention paid to increase the estimated cost and looting thousands of crores of rupees was not shown in the construction of the project."