An awesome awesome visit !

This was a visit to the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project.

The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project is a complex system of barrages, pump-houses, tunnels and canals, to move water over some very difficult terrain......going against gravity, and that's why called 'lift' irrigation. It's on the river Godavari. It's so massive and so complex that I doubt I could do justice even writing as much as I understood.

It's expected to change the landscape of a significant portion of Telangana, infact they said it would impact 40% of the state, that's how massive it is.

What's wonderful is that it's at final stage of completion, with the commitment and excitement palpable among all those associated, right from the Chief Engineers to the Supervisors, the workmen and even the guys who drove us around. They all seem to know they are part of something historical and huge.

While this would be an awe inspiring visit to anyone, to Praveen and me it added that facet of nostalgia, as we'd pretty much grown up on the Srisailam project when under construction. While in one of the tunnels, the engineer was telling me "there's too much mud and dust, we should move quick, it'll make breathing difficult" and I was like "what, no...this feels and smells wonderful, like .,,.like...." and then I realized it smelt like childhood excitement :)

The location we went to was an hour beyond Karimnagar, making it a five hour drive, and we decided to do a day trip.....a 6 am to 10 pm day.....and one that will stay forever.

Rest in pictures:

The scene from the project site office

Shifting from our cars to theirs. Mr Sridhar and Mr Narsimha Rao , Chief Engineers on the project who accompanied us and patiently and proudly explained the spectrum of operations.

They started with this line drawing which gave us an overall perspective..... and told us that we would be seeing one or if interested two of the several phases of the project ( we did both), each a complete section of water inflow, pumphouse lifting and water outflow

An open canal, which leads into two massive tunnels, inside of which are pump houses with massive generators ( the worlds largest to date) and gets lifted over several levels to be let out at a level higher than what the river naturally flows at ...........the essence of lift irrigation

The inflow channels

The lot of us standing on the barrage, other end of the canal are two tunnels through which the water will flow 

The vehicles that rough it out in that dry, dusty and difficult terrain

The tunnels of another phase

Inside the tunnels...which we can drive through now as the waters not yet been let in. It actually feels like out of a horror movie.......there's places with no light where we asked for the car lights to be switched off and it's a dark that one doesn't see otherwise

Parts of the tunnel where the inflow of water happens

An eerie picture in just car lights

Going to the pumphouse

The pump house with work in full swing...all of this is deep within the mountains

Some stuff being explained

Inside the pump house

The generator itself

The foundation for the generator before it's fit in

This is actually inside the generator space

One of the phases where it's all ready to go

A group pic inside the pump house

On a canal weir

Dusk along  a canal

Back to our own cars, and ready to head back

Everything there is so larger than life, it seems to redefine scale at the physical level.....and that's why it's visually so awe inspiring. So much so, and seeing it's potential impact actually influenced my vote in the recent polls.

Many many thanks to Sridhar and Narsimha Rao for enabling this once in a life time experience.