: The Andhra Pradesh government will re-prioritise irrigation projects and adopt the best practices in water conservation to make the State drought-proof in the next five years, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said here on Monday.
Releasing a ‘White Paper on Irrigation Sector’ at a press conference here, he took up cudgels against the previous Congress regime and said its 10-year rule was marked by corruption and irregularities in the irrigation sector. He said huge investments were made but no corresponding irrigation facilities were created.
The budget for irrigation sector increased from Rs.2,178 crore in 2003-04 to Rs.17,811 crore in 2009-10 and a total of 86 projects were taken up at a cost of Rs.1,90,598 crore. The requirement of budget to complete these projects in 10 years would be 20 to 30 per cent of the state budget but outlays remained not less than Rs.15,000 crore per annum.
Mr.Naidu quoted observations from the 2012 report of Comptroller and Auditor General which faulted the then government. Among others, the CAG said adopting unrealistic duration for project completion without clearances, land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement had a cascading effect on time and cost overrun of the projects.
