The State government has set up two high-level committees to oversee land acquisition, and rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) of people who will be displaced due to submersion of villages after the height of the Alamatti dam is increased from 519.6 m to 524.25 m.
Official sources told The Hindu here on Thursday that a 26-member committee, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as chairman and Water Resources Minister M.B. Patil as vice-chairman, would take care of the larger issue concerning implementation of the government’s decision to increase the height of the dam, according to the award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal II. A 21-member official committee, headed by the Chief Secretary, would prepare an action plan for completing land acquisition and R&R.
Sources said the committee headed by the Chief Minister would have the responsibility of clearing all hurdles to land acquisition and taking up R&R and ensure that all the works were completed on time.
The committee headed by the Chief Secretary had been entrusted with the responsibility of fixing time limit for completing land acquisition and R&R to enable the State to take up the work on increasing the dam height.
UKP third phaseThe State has decided to increase the dam height to 524.25 m and utilise 130.9 tmcft of water under the third phase of the Upper Krishna Project (UKP).
Under the third phase, nine sub-phases have been identified for taking up works in the drought-prone Bagalkot, Bijapur, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur and Koppal districts and bring an additional 5.3 lakh hectares of land under the irrigation network.
