MEIL completes 3,767 MW pumping capacity for Kaleshwaram at Kondapochamma Sagar

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekar Rao on Friday, 29 May inaugurated the Markook pump house, which is a critical component of the world’s largest irrigation project- Kaleshwaram irrigation project. Built by infrastructure company Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (MEIL), the newly inaugurated pump house in KCR’s constituency, Gajwel can lift water into the 15 TMC capacity Kondapochamma Sagar reservoir. This reservoir irrigates 2.85 lakh acres of land spread across a few districts apart from providing drinking water to Hyderabad.

The Hyderabad-based MEIL is executing over Rs 70,000 crore worth of works out of a total of Rs 1.05 lakh crore of Kaleshwaram project at a capacity of 3 TMC of water.

The Kaleshwaram project, which is the first of its kind, consists of a total of 22 pumping stations with 96 machines having a total capacity of 4,680 megawatts.

“Of this, Meil has built 15 pumping stations with 89 machines having a capacity of 3,840 MW in the shortest time of four years, demonstrating its engineering and management capacities,” said MEIL, in a statement.

At a time when construction of reservoirs and canals was taking decades, the Kaleshwaram project with all its complex electro-mechanical underground works could be completed in four years, said MEIL.

“While the Kaleshwaram project requires 4680 MW of total capacity to lift 2 TMCs of water per day, MEIL itself established 89 machines with a total capacity of 3840 MW, that indicates the role being played by the company for this prestigious project of Telangana. Not only in terms of each machine, but even in terms of total capacity, it is the world’s largest pump house. One can imagine the size of this pump house, constructed 470 feet below the ground with 327 metre in length 25-metre width, and 65 metre height," said MeEIL director B. Srinivas Reddy.

MEIL has established a massive power supply system for the Kaleshwaram project, which is almost equal to one-fourth of the entire power supply system of Telangana state that has a capacity of 15,087 MWs; covering 33 districts. It is nearly similar to the whole power infrastructure of all the seven north-eastern states of India.