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The underground pumping stations of the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) in Telangana on the river Godavari has commenced operations.
Considered an engineering marvel, the world’s largest Laximpur underground pumping station (LUPS), constructed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd , forms part of one of the packages of the mega irrigation project, named after the goddess Gayatri.
The wet run began with switching on the fifth machine in LUPS on Sunday night, enabling pumping up of 3,000 cusecs of water to a height of 111 metres to be evacuated into the Mid-Manair through the gravity canal.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is slated to inaugurate the pump house on Wednesday.
The 52-minute wet run discharged 89.73 cumecs of water into the gravity canal. Approximately on Sunday about 98,85,303 cubic feet was pumped up, equivalent to 28 crore litres.
The project is expected to transform the parched dry tracts of Telangana and enable live storage of water in reservoirs throughout the year in the Godavari River Belt.
This underground pump house enables reverse pumping of Godavari water, thereby rejuvenating the hitherto dry areas en route.
B. Srinivas Reddy, Director, MEIL, said, “This is an extraordinary underground pumphouse, 470 feet below the ground with twin tunnels and the largest surge pools in the world. This is an ultra-mega project in the world, having seven motors, each having a capacity of 139 megawatts. These motors can together lift 3 TMC of water per day.”
“This is the true example of “Make in India,” as these gigantic Motors are developed in the country with the computational fluid dynamics technology,” he said.
The KLIP project included construction of electrical infrastructure with 3,057 MW capacity that comprises six 400KV and 220KV substations, transformers and 260 kilometres of transmission lines and 7 kilometres of 400 KV underground cable work.
It has pumping capacity of 2 tmcs of water per day. Massive underground caverns have been excavated to construct the pumphouse and surge pools to lift incoming water from underground.
The cavern is 140 meters deep, 25 meters wide and 65 meters in high. It’s Service Bay is located at 221 metres below the ground, while the pump bay is at 190.5 metres and transformer bay are at 215 metres with its control room at 209 metres underground.
The pumphouse has twin tunnels, built side by side with tunnel is 4,133 metres long with a diameter of 10 metres. As each motor requires 139 MW of power to run, a 160 KVA capacity pump transformer along with compressor units have been set up successfully.
Three surge pools have been constructed to store enough water. Erection of turbine pumps at a depth of 138 meters underground is another unique feature of the project as each pump weighs around 2,376 metric tonnes.
The Chief Minister has named four pumping stations on Godesses Laxmi, Saraswathi, Parvathi and Gayatri.
This pump house forms part of the mega Rs 80,500 crore project on river Godavari aiming to transform Telangana from a dorught prone one to drought proof State.
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