As part of the State government’s decision for effective management of pump houses, barrages, balancing reservoirs and canals forming part of Kaleshwaram project, a mobile application has been made available to irrigation engineers of Godavari Basin projects in Telangana from Wednesday.
The field engineers are expected to understand the functioning of the mobile app introduced as part of the Decision Support System (DSS), which is already being implemented in some states including in the Middle Godavari Basin in Andhra Pradesh, by taking up data entry on a daily basis.
A day-long workshop for the engineers of Kaleshwaram and other projects in the Godavari Basin was held here on Wednesday to create awareness about the new system. Engineer-in-Chief (Irrigation) C. Muralidhar, inaugurating the workshop, said all components for the effective management of the project would become available in the support system.
Based on the information, the engineers would be able to manage pump house, barrages, reservoirs and canals effectively as it would provide status of water available in the reservoirs, water required in the ayacut, position of groundwater table, rainfall, inflows into various reservoirs and others, Mr. Muralidhar stated.
The State government has entered into an agreement with Vassar Labs for developing the support system. The agency would not only develop software needed for the system but also readies mobile apps and maintain the system for five years. It would also give training to engineers on maintenance of the system and use of mobile apps. It would allow the Chief Minister to monitor the status of various components, take necessary decisions and give suggestions and instructions to engineers, the ENC explained.
Representative of the Vissar Labs Nikhilesh explained the salient features of the DSS with the help of power point presentation. He stated that it would enable visibility of all information in one system to engineers, to make inflow forecast, weather information and forecast, availability of water and water spread area in reservoirs. One central command centre, and three local command centres would be established as part of the system to collect and compile the information required for effective management of the system.
Sensors would also be installed on river systems in the basin, barrages/reservoirs and pump houses. The mobile app would allow the engineers to enter data that would be linked to information generated by India Meteorological Department, European Space Agency and Groundwater Department. Based on the information, one month forecast on rainfall, flow of water in rivers and inflows into reservoirs could be developed.
ENCs B. Nagender Rao, N. Venkateshwarlu, B. Hariram, chief engineers R. Madhusudhana Rao, M.A. Hameed Khan, K. Veeraiah, G. Shankar Naik, Officer on Special Duty to Chief Minister Sridhar Rao Deshpande, superintending and executive engineers of Godavari Basin projects attended the meeting.
