A view of the flooded pump house of Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) at Vattem in Nagarkurnool district.
| Photo Credit: By Arrangement
HYDERABAD
Vattem pump house of the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) was flooded a couple of days back with water from the chain-link tanks of Nagarkurnool entering the tunnel, surge-pool and pump house, flooding the pump house near Kummera village, Nagarkurnool. The incident came to light only on Tuesday (September 3, 2024) as the project authorities tried to keep it under the carpet.
Chief Engineer of PRLIS at Nagarkurnool G. Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy confirmed that water had flooded the pump house and the pumping out of water (dewatering) was in progress.
According to the information reaching here and the project engineers, the Vattem underground pump house being constructed to pump water into Venkatadri reservoir, was constructed with a capacity of 16.74 tmc ft, as part of the third stage of lifting in PRLIS.
The surplus water of the chain-link tanks of Thudikurthi, Sripuram, Nagamalu and others first entered into one of the audits, a service tunnel used during the construction of underground pump houses, linked to the main tunnel, then surge pool, where water is stored to ensure the pumps get water for lifting with proper pressure, and then into the pump house itself.
Against erection of 10 pumps of 145 megawatt capacity each, nine for regular use and one as spare pump, work on four was already completed and the fifth one was in progress, PRLIS authorities said. The damage caused to the pumps already fixed could be assessed only after dewatering the pump house.
