The Hindu : Uncertainty over fate of irrigation schemes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 17, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Uncertainty over fate of irrigation schemes

By S. Venugopal

MAHABUBNAGAR JULY 16. Years have rolled by but the fate of the execution of the Kalwakurthy and Nettempadu lift irrigation projects that were planned on river Krishna to irrigate over 4.5 lakh acres of land in the chronic drought-prone district of Mahabubnagar still hangs in balance, thanks to the apathy of the Government towards completion of these much publicised projects.

Leaders of Opposition parties in the district allege that the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, refers to these two irrigation projects during the time of every election and announces that his Government would take up construction of these two projects immediately but forgets to keep his promise after the elections. Even though survey divisions were set up in 1991 for these two projects, even after a decade the survey work is still limping. Keeping an eye on the Assembly elections in 1999, the Chief Minister laid the foundation for the Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation project on July 5, 1999 at Regumanugadda near Yelloor village under Kollapur mandal.

Speaking at a public meeting at Kollapur after laying the foundation stone, Mr Chandrababu Naidu announced that construction works would be undertaken immediately and the project would be completed as early as possible to irrigate lands under Kollapur, Kalwakurthy, Nagarkurnool and Achampet Assembly segments. Project design was prepared with eight reservoirs and 11 lifts and cost of the construction was estimated at Rs. 2,004 crores. It was vaguely mentioned in the project report that the backwaters of Srisailam reservoir would be utilised for the project but the State Government failed to show the 25 tmcft of water required for the project from the assured water of Krishna river so far and also failed to give environmental clearance due to which it could not secure the nod from the Central Water Commission. Plus it could not announce so far from where it would pool the funds required to construct the project.

Meanwhile, the State Government has changed its tune with regard to the Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme. To minimise the cost of construction of the project the Government has decided to redesign the project on the lines of the Alimineti Madhava Reddy Lift Irrigation taken up in Nalgonda district. Engineering experts have estimated that the cost of the project would come down to Rs 1200 crores if the cost-effective indigeneous technology that was used in the Madhava Reddy project was used in the Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme. Resurvey of the project is being undertaken by the engineers of the survey division of the project which is expected to be completed by the end of the December. The main Opposition, the Congress party, criticised the Telugu Desam Government for lacking in sincerity on the completion of the project which is evident by pruning the project and ordering for conduct of resurvey. ''All this is to whiling away the time'', the Congress leaders alleged.

Similar is the case with the Nettempadu project which is envisaged to take up by lifting of 20 tmcft of water from the foreshores of Krishna river at Uppair village under Dharoor mandal. Over 2 lakh acres spread over 148 villages located in the erstwhile taluqs of Alampur and Gadwal would get benefited if the project is completed at an estimated cost of Rs.1200 crores.

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