CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 90 of 120

Correct — C, Telangana. The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation System is built on the Godavari at Kaleshwaram in the Bhupalpally district of Telangana, and was opened on 21 June 2019 by the Governor and the Chief Minister of the state. It is a lift scheme rather than a gravity one — water is pumped up in stages through barrages, pump houses, tunnels and reservoirs rather than being carried down a slope — and at a construction cost of about 80,190 crore rupees, a network of roughly 500 kilometres and a command spread across thirteen districts, it is described as the largest multi-stage lift irrigation project in the world. Its scale is also why it has drawn scrutiny.

• (a)Kerala — Kerala's irrigation works are on its own short west-flowing rivers; the Godavari does not reach the state.
• (b)Gujarat — Gujarat's flagship irrigation project is the Sardar Sarovar on the Narmada, a very different scheme in a different basin.
• (d)Maharashtra — Maharashtra shares the Godavari basin, and the river rises there at Trimbakeshwar, but Kaleshwaram itself lies downstream in Telangana.

Lift irrigation is what a state resorts to when the land it wants to water sits above the river. Telangana lies largely on the Deccan plateau while the Godavari runs in a deep valley along its northern edge, so pumping is the only way to move that water onto the fields. The project takes its name from the temple town of Kaleshwaram at the meeting of the Godavari and the Pranahita. Because it runs on pumping, its recurring electricity bill is a large part of its cost, and that is one of the grounds on which its economics have been questioned.

The name itself is the surest guide — Kaleshwaram is a Telangana place name, and the project is inseparable from the state's post-2014 water politics. Two later assessments are worth carrying with the answer, because current-affairs questions on big projects tend to return as critical ones. The National Green Tribunal found that the environmental clearances required by law had not been obtained before work began and were granted by the Union government only afterwards. And the Comptroller and Auditor General put the project's cost-to-benefit ratio at roughly 1 to 0.75, against the government's claim of 1 to 1.5 — that is, a rupee spent returning less than a rupee of benefit.

• The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project is on the Godavari at Kaleshwaram in Bhupalpally district, Telangana.
• It was opened on 21 June 2019 by the Governor and the Chief Minister of Telangana.
• Its construction cost was about 80,190 crore rupees; the network runs about 500 kilometres across thirteen districts.
• It is described as the world's largest multi-stage lift irrigation project.
• The National Green Tribunal found that environmental clearance was granted only after work had begun, and the Comptroller and Auditor General assessed the cost-to-benefit ratio at about 1 to 0.75.

• Placing the project in Andhra Pradesh, which is where Polavaram is; Kaleshwaram is in Telangana.
• Assuming a big irrigation scheme must be a dam; Kaleshwaram works by pumping in stages.
• Repeating the official cost-to-benefit claim; the Comptroller and Auditor General's assessment is markedly lower.

As a project-to-state item, or as a statements question on a large infrastructure scheme and the criticisms made of it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project draws water from which one of the following rivers?

  • (a)Krishna
  • (b)Godavari
  • (c)Penna
  • (d)Tungabhadra

  Answer(b) Godavari — at Kaleshwaram, where the Pranahita joins it, in Bhupalpally district of Telangana.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A lift irrigation project is one in which

  • (a)water flows to the fields under gravity from a storage dam
  • (b)water is pumped up from a river to land lying at a higher level
  • (c)groundwater is raised by open wells
  • (d)rainwater is harvested in farm ponds

  Answer(b) water is pumped up from a river to land lying at a higher level — which is why Kaleshwaram runs on a large and continuing electricity bill.