The wet run of the first pump of Chankha-Korata Barrage constructed across the Pengaga river, a tributary of Wardha in the Godavari Basin, in Adilabad district was conducted successfully on Thursday night by the engineers of the Irrigation department in association with those from work agency and TS-Transco.
The pump with 5.5 megawatt capacity has a designed discharge of over 300 cusecs by lifting water for 41.43 metres. The project was given administrative approval in November 2015 for ₹368.8 crore. Works on the project commenced after an agreement was signed between the chief ministers of Telangana and Maharashtra on August 23, 2016.
After making changes by increasing the ayacut in Telangana and Maharashtra the project cost was revised and approval was given for ₹796 crore in January 2022.
According to the Irrigation department engineers, the inter-State project was taken up with two stage pumping to irrigate about 13,750 acres in 14 villages of Adilabad, Jainath and Bheempur mandals in Telangana and 3,000 acres in 9 villages of Maharashtra.
On the project works, the authorities said the barrage running for a length of 342 metres with 23 gates and storage capacity of 0.83 tmc ft at full reservoir level, main canal, distributary canals from 1 to 8, two pump houses, 3.6 km length of pressure main have been completed so far. However, distributary and field channels are yet to be completed.
On the pump houses, the engineers said first stage pumping has three pumps, including one as stand-by, with 5.5 MW capacity each and the second stage pumping also has three pumps, including one as spare pump, with 12 MW capacity each. The first stage pumps have a discharge capacity of over 300 cusecs lifting it for over 41.4 metres, while in the second they have 270 cusecs capacity each with lifting of water to 119 metres.
The wet run of the first pump was supervised by irrigation engineers led by Advisor to Government (Lift Irrigation) K. Penta Reddy, Chief Engineer T. Srinivas, Superintending Engineer P. Ramu, Executive Engineer K. Ravinder and others. The Transco engineers team was led by EE (LI) Sathya Prakash Singh and others and work agency engineers by P. Amrutha Raj.
