Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao has expressed satisfaction over the arrangements being made by the Energy department to lift Kaleshwaram project water from Ranganayaksagar to Kondapochamma reservoir during this rainy season itself.
On Thursday, he telephoned TSTransco Managing Director Prabhakar Rao, who went on a sudden inspection of the ongoing works of Akkaram and Markuk pump houses. Mr. Prabhakar Rao said that all the lifts as instructed by the Chief Minister would be readied in four to five days to transfer Kaleshwaram project water to Kondapochamma reservoir. The works were going on a war-footing for this. At present water was being lifted successfully till Ranganayaksagar and from there it would be lifted to Mallannasagar and then Kondapochammasagar, he said.
Acutely aware of the work being carried out amidst the scare over spread of the pandemic COVID-19, the Transco MD instructed the staff to adhere to all precautions and guidelines issued by the government to prevent spread of coronavirus and follow social distancing norms strictly.
The Akkaram pumphouse has 162 MW (6x27) capacity pumpsets to lift water to Markuk and it has 204 MW (6x34) pumpsets ready to lift the water. Four teams are working 24x7 and testing would be done to keep the pumphouses ready to function in four to five days. There was some tense time in between as the expert team dealing with cabling work of pumphouse went to Mumbai and got stuck there due to lockdown. As the work would not start until the team was brought to Telangana and it would upset the timelines for pumping water to Kondapochammasagar, the Transco MD wrote a letter to the DGP Mahender Reddy seeking his intervention.
Mr. Reddy spoke to his Maharashtra counterpart and secured special permission for the team to travel to Telangana by road. The team then reached Siddipet on April 21. The pump house works were now going on under their supervision, Mr. Prabhakar Rao said.
