Telangana Congress government gets Andhra Pradesh advisor Kannaiah Naidu to help with Sunkishala, keeps visit secret

Irrigation engineering expert suggests to HMWSSB officials to redesign three gates proposed for three intake tunnels as part of the intake well of Sunkishala

Hyderabad: In a visit that has been strangely been kept a secret, the State government recently got Advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government and veteran irrigation engineering expert Kannaiah Naidu to visit the Sunkishala site in Nalgonda to help the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) get the project back on track after the August 2024 retaining wall collapse, which caused major embarrassment for the Congress government.

Naidu not only visited the site, but has suggested to HMWSSB officials that they redesign the three gates proposed for the three intake tunnels as part of the intake well of Sunkishala. Naidu’s visit to the Sunkishala site, about 180 km from the city, had a HMWSSB team, led by Managing Director K Ashok Reddy, accompanying the irrigation engineering expert.

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The HMWSSB is said to have sought technical assistance from Naidu to build three gates for the Sunkishala intake well. These three gates are to be installed at the top, middle and bottom of the three intake tunnels for the purpose of intake well maintenance works. Naidu came to the city after the HMWSSB invited him to visit the Sunkishala site and approve the blueprint of the design of the gates.

The Sunkishala drinking water project is aimed at meeting Greater Hyderabad’s drinking water needs, and the Telangana government targeted its completion by April 2026. However, while works on the drinking water project at the Sunkishala site were progressing at a brisk pace, in August 2024, the retaining wall of the project collapsed suddenly.

The incident was of major embarrassment for the Congress government, which suspended four HMWSSB officials after a probe the same month. Unexpected inflows gushing from Nagarjuna Sagar into the Sunkishala tunnel were cited as the main reason for the structure (retaining wall) damage.

“The engineering expert, Naidu, spent more than six hours at the site and discussed the blueprint of the gates with the Hyderabad Water Board officials’ team,” sources in the HMWSSB told Telangana Today.

After detailed discussions and an exchange of views with the engineering expert, he advised the HMWSSB officials to redesign the gates and prepare a fresh blueprint. “The blueprint will be prepared with the redesigned gates and, once approved by Naidu, construction will begin,” sources said.

The 78-year-old Naidu is a hydro-mechanical engineer and an irrigation expert with more than five decades of experience in designing and building irrigation project gates. In 2024, his name came to light after he fixed a temporary stoplog gate in the place where the decades-old 19th gate of the Tungabhadra dam was washed away in Karnataka, and that too within a record time.

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Sunkishala intake well

Proposed one common raw water drawl intake project at Sunkishala to draw water even from the below minimum draw down level (MDDL) up to 460 feet at Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir, to avoid any interruptions and resorting to an emergency pumping system during the summer
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Intake well-infra highlights

Deep underground shaft, dry well & wet well (surge pool), three intake tunnels at different levels for raw water drawls, pumps & motors, trash gates & sluice gates, air vessels, transformers, electrical substation, dedicated HT feeder mains, MS pumping mains, access & escape tunnels

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Benefits

Areas under GHMC and its periphery Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration (HUA) up to ORR