TS NEEDS 11.5 GW FOR IRRIGATION

Telangana would require 11,500 MW or 11.5 gigawatt (GW) power for pumping water from lift irrigation projects in the state, according to a report prepared by Transco.

In his report to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Transco chairman and managing director D. Prabhakar Rao said that they are ready to supply of power for lift irrigation projects.

“After the completion of Kalasevaram, Palamur, and Seetharama projects, lift irrigation schemes would need 11,500 MW of power,” he said.

Accordingly TS Genco, which has set a target of generating 27,000 MW of power by 2020, has earmarked a major portion of this for the lift irrigation projects and agriculture pump sets.

For the first time, Transco has created the lift irrigation wing and accorded top priority for provision of power supply to the lift irrigation projects.

The Transco MD said that it would need to set 10 400-KV substations, 24 220-KV substations, 25 132-KV substations and have special transmission lines for this.

It is also estimated that once the projects are completed, the annual maintenance expenditure on power supply would be `10,000 crore.

The CM 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 CM had said that by 2020 the Telangana state annual budget would cross `2 lakh crore and out of this `10,000 crore would spent for lift irrigation. The government has decided to use high power 139 MW motor engine motors for the Kaleswaram project — a capacity which was not used nowhere in the country.