Uttarandhra Rakshana Vedika at a meeting here on Sunday urged the Union Government to extend the left canal of the Polavaram project up to Gotta barrage and take up Uttarandhra Sujala Sravanthi scheme to provide irrigation and drinking water to the three north coastal districts of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam.
The Congress Working Committee and the UPA had announced the decision to declare the Polavaram project a national project as a part of a package deal to sanction Statehood to Telangana, Convener of the Vedika S.S Sivasankar said.
"However, it is of little avail to the three districts of north-coastal Andhra. The Polavaram project will be more beneficial to the south coastal districts and offers little relief to the north-coastal districts.
Of course, the left canal will bring 23 tmc ft. of Godavari waters to Visakhapatnam district, but it will be used for industrial purposes and for irrigating only 1.43 lakh acres in the Visakhapatnam district. Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts have nothing, or little, to gain from it, unless the canal is extended up to Gotta Barrage and water is taken there," he said in a statement issued here.
The three districts had been at the receiving end for a long time in the united State of Andhra Pradesh, as successive State governments had ignored them and made no efforts to settle the inter-State disputes with Odisha.
