Minister for Major Irrigation Devineni Umamaheswara Rao on Friday said the government is considering transfer of the Godavari water to the Krishna river by lift to meet the immediate irrigation and drinking water needs in the Goavari and the Krishna deltas.
He went round the head works site of the Polavaram project and received feedback on the latest status of the project, implementation of the relief and relocation (R&R) package and the problems related to land acquisition for the main dam and the right and the left main canals from the officials from the Irrigation and Revenue departments through power point presentations. He sought to dispel the fears in a section of farmers over the fate of the Polavaram project initiated a decade ago during the Congress regime in the light of the latest proposal for the lift scheme.
“The lift scheme is not at the expense of the Polavaram project, but only a stop-gap arrangement until the latter is completed,” he told the media personnel after the official review meeting.
As the acute water scarcity was looming over the Krishna and the Godavari deltas, the prospects of second crop which required around 54 tmc came under question every year. The government was only trying to help farmers on an ad hoc basis, he said. It is proposed to lift the water from the Godavari somewhere near Pattesam and pump the same into the right main canal, designed to link the Krisha near Prakasam Barrage. The most part of the canal which runs for a distance of 174 km was already executed and that it is ready to serve the purpose.
Mr. Umamaheswara Rao, who led a delegation to the Centre recently with an appeal for a liberal Central assistance to complete the project within a specified timeline of 3-4 years, expressed the hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do whatever was required for the project to become a reality. He said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu would visit the Polavaram project site in December to take stock of the project progress and explore the feasibility for the lift scheme.
Meanwhile, a group of tribal project outstees from Devaragondi, Ramayyapet and Chegondipalli stopped the Minister’s convoy while proceeding to the project site and tried to draw his attention to the alleged raw deal they received from the administration.
