Hyderabad: The Telangana Transco has made all arrangements to provide the required power for Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s pet project of providing irrigated water to 1 crore acres of land.
The Chief Minister has estimated the requirement of power for the maintenance of lifts of the projects while redesigning the irrigation projects. Instructions have been issued for making arrangements power supply prior to the completion of pump houses.
The Chief Minister suggested the works are to be carried as parallely and accordingly, the Telangana Transco for the last 2 years worked hard and made arrangements for power supply to the proposed lift irrigation projects.
Tranco CMD D. Prabhakar Rao submitted a comprehensive report mentioning about the works that have been taken and completed as well as the works that are proposed and to be taken up. He mentioned in the report that by 2020 the Department will be able to produce the required power as well as will be able to supply uninterruptedly.
Salient features of the Report
Telangana Transco estimated that 11,500 MW of power would be required when lift irrigation projects of Kaleshwaram, Palamuru and Sitarama.
Transco has requested Genco to provide the required power for these projects accordingly Genco is increasing the power production capacity.
Genco which has set a target of producing 27,000 MW of power by 2020 as earmark a major portion of this for the lift irrigation projects and agriculture pump sets. With this Telangana Transco has concentrated on developing new substations and lines and targeted them to be completed expeditiously.
The Transco CMD and other officials are meeting once in a week and reviewing the progress of the works in this regard. Orders have been placed for the pumps, motors and other equipment and getting ready for supply of the power.
Arrangements at a record level for the lift irrigation project
The Telangana Transco for the first time has created the lift irrigation wing which was not there earlier a Director and two chief engineers as well as other staff have been allocated for the wing and have given top priority for provision of power supply to the lift irrigation projects.
Even though, then united Andhra Pradesh Government major projects like Pranahita Chevella were designed, there was no arrangements made for power supply. Not even a single rupee was spent for provision of power for the lift irrigation schemes.
Telangana Government has drawn an elaborate plan towards supply of power. It has planned meticulously for supply of all the requirements. It has been decided to generate 11,500MW of power for all the lifts. Genco will make it ready. It has been estimated to have ten, 400KV Substations, twenty four, 220KV Substations, twenty five, 132KV Substations and special transmission lines for this.
Having estimated that the expenditure would be Rs 6,000 Crore, it has been planned to procure the funds from the Irrigation Department. Transco will take care of maintenance responsibility.
It is also estimated that once the projects are completed the annual expenditure for maintenance on power supply would be Rs 10,000 Crore.
For this, the Chief Minister has assured government preparedness several times. He has repeatedly mentioned that in the state the majority of people depend on agriculture and as such it is primary responsibility of the government to provide water for Irrigation specific instructions has been issued to pay the power bills through the irrigation department.
The Chief Minister said that by 2020 the budget of Telangana state would cross Rs 2 lakh crore out of which or spending Rs 10,000 Crore for lift irrigation and Rs 6000 to Rs 7000 Crore for free power supply to the farmers the government is prepared.
KCR made it very clear that there is no other more priority item before the government than the welfare of the farmers. No other state as such a large scale elaborate arrangements are made for the lift irrigation as is done in Telangana.
Nowhere in the world motors of so much capacity
The government has decided to use motors for the lifts in Telangana which have maximum capacity for the Kaleshwaram projects it would be 139 MW motor engines. So far such a capacity motor engines have not been used nowhere in the country or even in the world.
To study the technical knowhow of the production process the officer’s team visited Austria once. They held discussions with the experts on manufacturing of motors and pumps.
Public sector undertaking BHEL has been entrusted with manufacturing of motors. These are manufactured in the BHEL largest unit at Bhopal by next year. These motors would be made available to lift water from the Medigadda Pump house as of now the maximum capacity motors of 30MW is being used in Kalwakurthy lift.
Since it is decided to lift 2TMC water per day at Kaleshwaram, it is required to use 139 MW capacity of motors, at Ramadugu another 139MW capacity motors will be used to lift water of 3200 Cusecs flow at an height of 120 mts, at Chandalapur 134 MW capacity, at Medaram 124 MW capacity, at Thippapur 106 MW capacity will have to be used to lift water of 3000 Cusecs flow at an height of 100 mts. Works connected to the construction of pumps are in progress. Motors will be fitted later.
From 400 MW to 11,500 MW Journey
At the time of formation of Telangana for Devadula, Alimineti Madhava Reddy lift as well as for few more small lifts a total of 400 MW of power was utilized. After the formation of Telangana more and more schemes like Kalwakurthy, Nettampadu, Koilsagar and Bhima in Palamuru District. Bhaktharamadasu in Khammam district have commenced. Power required for these has been arranged by Transco at present 1263MW of power is required and being used for all the lifts put together in the state.
In future 4600 MW for Kaleshwaram project, 4000 MW for Palamuru project, 690 MW for Sitarama project is required. Additional power is also required for few more small lifts elsewhere in the state all there put together requirement would be 11,500MW.
In addition to the request of power for the lift irrigation as announced by the CM for the farmers for the next Rabi crop for supply of round the clock free power the requirement would be about 7000 MW. By then however the production capacity of the Telangana Genco would reach 27,000MW.
Enabling supply of adequate power for the lifts, supplying required power for the lift and pump sets by spending large amounts of funds Telangana have achieved a record as a state that supplies large quantity of power. (INN)