Nitin Guttedar, president of the Kalaburagi Zilla Panchayat, and Anirudh Sravan, chief executive officer, have directed the Joint Director of Agriculture to inspect irrigation projects in the district to verify the claims by the Water Resource Department about bringing areas under irrigation network, also referred to as creating wet irrigation potential.
Chairing the monthly review meeting of the Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) here on Friday, they said that there had been discrepancies in the claims of the officials and the ground reality.
Ground situation
When officials of the Bennethora Major Irrigation project made a submission that a wet irrigation potential of 19,049 hectares (ha) had been created, Mr. Guttedar and Mr. Sravan said these claims needed to be checked as the ground situation in the command area was different.
They said that the Agriculture Department officials should inspect the command areas and submit a report to the zilla panchayat on the claims made by the officials and the action irrigation potential created.
Bennethora Irrigation Project with a potential to irrigate more than 20,000 ha in drought-prone areas in the district was taken up originally as a drought relief work in 1972 and was yet to be completed and irrigation potential created.
Recently, the government sanctioned a modernisation project for upgrading the canal system in the project before releasing water to farmers’ fields.
Water Resource Department officials said that the government had allocated Rs. 37.5 crore for the Bhima Lift Irrigation Project and set a target of creating a dry potential of 4,292 ha during the year. The project is designed to provide irrigation facility to 24,292 ha.
Mr. Guttedar directed the Gulbarga Electricity Supply Company authorities to provide uninterrupted power to water supply projects and also energise pending drinking water projects at the earliest taking into consideration the drought like situation in the district.
