Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has said that a barrage will be constructed at Dummugudem that will generate hydel power as well as store water.
He instructed the officials to make necessary arrangements for lifting three tmcft of water from Kaleshwaram project to Mid Manair. Estimates should be prepared for the two works immediately and tenders should be invited, he said. Dummugudem barrage and lifting of three tmcft of water to Mid Manair are estimated to cost ₹13,500 crore to ₹14,000 crore.
Approval for the two works would be taken in the next Cabinet meeting, he said.
He also said tenders should also be called for works for transferring two tmcft of water to Mallannasagar and for remaining works in Sitarama project and Kanthanapalli barrage works should be completed by March-end.
The Chief Minister held a review meeting on irrigation projects and provision of irrigation facilities in the State with irrigation, Genco, Transco and CMO officials, some MLAs, MLCs and others at Pragathi Bhavan here on Thursday.
Mr Rao said that there would be abundant water available in the Godavari at Dummugudem for 150 days and there would be scope for hydel power generation. Thus he said that taking advantage of the favourable conditions, barrage with storage capacity of 37 tmcft and power plant for generating 320 MW should be constructed.
He instructed that the barrage should be designed in such a way to impound water in the river itself with least land acquisition.
The estimates should be prepared and tenders called by December-end. Mr Rao decided that three tmcft of water from Kaleshwaram should be pumped to Mid Manair from next year from the present two tmcft. Three tmcft of water should be lifted to Mid Manair and from there two tmcft to Mallannasagar and for these works too tenders should be called by December-end.
He said that the Irrigation Department should function as one department without the distinction of major, medium and minor irrigation. The State should be divided into six to seven irrigation zones and each zone would be headed by one Engineer-in-Chief as the incharge and supervise all the irrigation works in his jurisdiction, he said. All the important officials of the irrigation department should organise a State-level workshop in the next few days and formulate a comprehensive Telangana irrigation policy .
Maintenance strategy
An inventory of projects, reservoirs,canals, lifts, tanks should be prepared in the workshop itself and also a strategy for their maintenance.
Required funds for operating the irrigation system would be allocated in the budget itself, he said. Additional impellers, pumpsets, power transformers should be kept ready near all the projects, he said.
Once the irrigation policy was finalised a State-level seminar would be organised. KCR instructed the officials to formulate an alternative plan to provide water to Nagarjunasagar ayacut when there was no flow in the Krishna.
He decided that Basvapur reservoir should be filled with water from Kaleshwaram project,from there to Shamirpet stream, Musi river, Asif Nahar and bypassing Udaya Samudram they should be linked to Panagal stream.
That way Godavari water could be released to Sagar ayacut.
