The newly formed Peddapalli district, which is completely under the SRSP command area, has emerged as role model for other districts in the State by implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the removal of bushes and silt from minor canals to provide water to the tail-end regions of the project.
The farmers of the SRSP canal tail-end regions, who have never ever seen the water entering into their fields since the construction of the project in the Kalwa Srirapur, Odela, Manthani and other mandals of the district, are celebrating after seeing water enter their fields.
Thanks to the removal of bushes and silt from the minor canals of the project under the NREGS, the water reached all the tail-end villages of the project in the district for the first time.
Talking to The Hindu , District Collector A.S. Alagu Varshini said that Peddapalli is the first district in the State to utilize NREGS scheme for the canal maintenance works. She said that they cleared the minor canals measuring over 300 kilometers in all the 11 mandals in the district by providing wage component of Rs. 1.16 crore to the labourers engaged under the NREGS.
The process of the clearing the canals was continuing in the remaining 90-odd kilometers when the water would be stopped during the on and off system, she added.
She also said that they had released Rs. 30 lakh to the Irrigation Department for taking up removal of silt and bushes from the main canals of the project at D-83 and D-86 to ensure that the water reached smoothly the minor canals and the tail-end regions.
The small initiative was yielding good results as the farmers of tail-end regions were very happy. “Our aim is to ensure that water is provided to the farmers from the head to tail of the SRSP project in the district and we achieved that also”, she noted.
Telangana State Irrigation Development Corporation Chairman Eda Shankar Reddy, who also hails from the district, pivotal role in ensuring that the water reached the tail-end farmers. He said that they had deployed police, revenue, irrigation and agricultural officers all along the minor canals for every two km to ensure water reached the tail-end regions without any pilferage.
