‘Failure of discharging valve joint might be cause of MGKLIS pump house submergence’

“The initial suspicion is on the possible failure of the discharging valve joint. Any leaks at the joints can result in submergence of the pump."

Hyderabad: A team of higher officials from the Water Resources department and lift irrigation experts are studying the reasons behind the flooding of Yellur pump house of the Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme (MGKLIS) at Yellur village in Nagarkurnool district on Saturday. The pump house submerged from the gushing water from the surge pool on Friday evening within 20 minutes after the pumps were turned on to fulfill the drinking needs under the Mission Bhagiratha Scheme.

“The initial suspicion is on the possible failure of the discharging valve joint. Any leaks at the joints can result in submergence of the pump. At present the engineers including K Penta Reddy Advisor Lift Irrigation to the government are at the spot and are supervising the operations of pumping out the backwaters from the submerged pump house,” Engineer in Chief Water Resources Cheeti Muralidhar told Telangana Today.

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According to the MGKLIS project engineers the first pump was started at 2.54 pm on Friday and the second was turned on at 3.45 pm. Within three minutes of the switching on of the second motor the water entered the pump house making huge noise and within 20 minutes the entire pump house was submerged. The engineers manning the pump house immediately closed the surge pool gates and prevented more water from entering the pump house. They also have initiated the dewatering process to pump the water from the submerged pump house.

Meanwhile, Minister for Agriculture Singireddy Niranjan Reddy rushed to the spot and reviewed the situation after taking stock of the mishap. “The reasons for the submergence will be known after all the water is pumped out. Till then there is no reason to speculate on the causes of the submergence. Once the water is pumped out and the engineers pinpoint the reason, then within a month the pump house will start functioning again,” Niranjan Reddy said.

The Minister allaying fears of farmers has said that Yellur, Singotam, Jonnalaboguda and Gudipalli reservoirs are brimming with water and submergence of the pump house will not cause any problems in irrigating the ayacut. He assured farmers that available water will be judicially distributed so that there will be no shortage for immediate requirements of the farmers.

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