Six more pumps of PRLIS to be commissioned soon

Even as the Krishna river water collected in sacred kalasas at the Narlapur pump house was used for sprucing up the feet of native deities in as many as 3000 villages signaling the end of the nightmarish phase for the water-starved Palamuru on Sunday, officials of the Palamuru Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme (PRLIS) embarked on the task of conducting final tests for the dry run of six more high powered pumps of 145MW each in both Stage II and Stage III of the prestigious project.

All the villages in the erstwhile Mahabubnagar district witnessed a flurry of activity with their local sarpanches and other elected representatives returning from Narlapur, where they attended the public meeting addressed by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Saturday. The return trips saw everyone with tiny containers filled with Krishna water. Rising above political



lines, people joined the ritual worship of the village gods in a festive mood.

On the other hand, the project officials could pump in over half a tmc of water into Anjanagiri reservoir with only one pump in operation. They have shifted their attention now on to the Stage II and Stage III works on the project. Six more pumps that are undergoing the mandatory end-to-end test will be ready for dry run soon. They will be commissioned in a phased manner in the next five weeks, Project Chief Engineer MA Hameed Khan said.

He said the successful wet run of the first mega pumping unit at Narlapur came in as a shot in the arm for the entire engineering wing of the project. They are working on the completion of the next two stages of the project with renewed enthusiasm. The tunnel works are being completed along with the lining part of it, he added.