Minister for Irrigation Harish Rao said that the Bhaktha Ramadasu Lift irrigation scheme (BR LIS) will be operative from first week of January 2017. Addressing the assembly during the question hour Harish Rao said that 92 per cent of project work is completed. The LIS is part of the TRS government’s ambitious plan to bring one crore acre under irrigation cover in Telangana State.

This project aims at providing irrigation facilities to the areas not covered by the NSP (Nagarjuna Sagar project) left canal. This major LIS is proposed to lift 5.5TMC water from Palair Balancing Reservoir from an elevation of +128.00 to +187.00 with 2 Pumps each having 275 Cusecs discharge.
The districts of Khammam and Warangal districts namely Marripeda, Thirumalayapalem, Kusumanchi, Nelakondapalli, Khammam rural and Mudigonda Mandals will benefit from this project of ₹ 90.87 Crore. The water would be stored at Palair reservoir and later will be brought to BR LIS project. The farmers will get water for one crop from this project.

Covering an ayacut of 58958 acres of the five mandals are basically drought-prone areas as there is no source of water and the people of the area depend on rain water only

Irrigation Potential of the LIS

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The water release from Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir to the second zone of the left canal has dropped to 50 per cent in the last 10 years. Palair farmers and farmers of second zone of NSP left canal are likely to be impacted adversely. As a result, there is an apprehension that the BR LIS project would meet the same fate as Vemsoor lift irrigation project in Sathupalli.

The officials are making arrangements for the inauguration of the project by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.