Gayatri Pumphouse
Gayatri Pumphouse is the largest irrigation pumping station in the world. This four-floor pump house is built below the earth's surface at 178 metres Reverse Surface Level. It has seven machines established, each with a capacity of 139 MW, totalling 973 MW. The pump house has four surge pools that store the water for pumping. Building such a mammoth pump house deep in the belly of the earth was not an easy task, but the MEIL, with its engineering prowess, completed it in less than 42 months.
The height of the main surge pool is 325 metres, almost one-third the length of the Polavaram Spillway. Daily at least two TMC ft of water is being pumped. The engineering teams designed and executed this mammoth project with innovative techniques. The pump house has all the latest ultra-modern technology.
A significant component of the Kaleshwaram
The Gayatri pump house is located near Lakshmipur village in the Karimnagar district of Telangana. It is crucial for the gigantic Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project as it diverts the River Godavari waters back into the reservoir of its tributary Mid Manair from the Sripadasagar Yellampalli project.
Usually, the flow of the river under gravity is downstream. The KLIP, with its multiple pumping stations, lifts the water from the River Godavari water to great heights. The water from the Sripadasagar Yellampalli project will reach the Gayathri pumping station surge pool deep inside the earth. From here, water is pumped to the Mid Manair reservoir through the Sriramsagar flood canal.
Seven machines are established in this pump house, each with a capacity of 139 MW, totalling 973 MW. No other pump house in the world has pumping machines of this capacity. A pumping machine combines a pump and a motor meant for pumping water. The machines pump the water to a static height of 118 metres. The power consumed by this pump house is much higher than the power generated in the Srisailam or Nagarjunasagar hydropower stations. Even in the world's largest irrigation project, the upcoming Polavaram in Andhra Pradesh, the power generated would be 960 MW.
Five machines are set up in the Gayatri pumping station and two in the adjacent pumping station. The company constructed service bays, pump bays, transformer bays, and a control room in the Gayatri. Lift irrigation projects like that in Colorado in the USA, and the tremendous artificial river in Libya, known to be the largest in the world so far, have been smaller than the KLIP.
The MEIL excavated 2.30 crore cubic metres of soil to construct the Gayatri pump house. This soil can cover an area of 84,754 square feet.
This pumping station has two tunnels constructed side by side, a unique feature in that. The length of each tunnel is 4,133 metres, with a diameter of 10.5 metres. Both tunnels have surge pools, apart from another surge pool abutting them. Adjacent to the tunnels, each floor has panels, a pump floor, and a compressor installed. In addition, a transformer bay, two control rooms, a battery room, and a motor room are located on every floor.
Surge Pool as long as...
The Gayatri pump house has four surge pools that store the water for pumping. The length of the main surge pool is 325 metres.
The seven machines in the pump house are heavier, weighing 2,376 metric tonnes, including accessories. It took several truckloads to transport every machine to the pump house. Each truck can only carry 20 tonnes. The main parts of the machine are the starter and the rotor. These are also heavier when compared to those used in other global projects. Each starter weighs 216 tonnes, and the rotor 196 tonnes.
In all, 6,000 tonnes of steel and 50,000 tonnes of cement and concrete were used to construct the pump house. With construction works completed, at least two TMC ft of water is pumped daily, greening the barren lands and giving the farmers bumper crops.
Water pumped from the Gayatri pump house is twice as much as successfully constructing and completing from Nagarjunasagar's right canal. The water flow from the Nagarjuna Sagar's right canal is 312 cumecs, while the Gayatri pumps 622 cumecs of water to an unbelievable height of 118 metres Reverse Surface Level. Pumping water to a height of 20 or 30 metres is rare, but the company has achieved an unimaginable feat of pumping to a height of 118 metres RSL.
We, along with India's heavy electric engineering giant, BHEL, and world-renowned companies such as Telk, Siemens, Wartsila, MMT, and LS cables, have been instrumental in the successful construction and completion of the gigantic underground Gayatri pump house.
Project Status : Completed