Designed to meet the needs of 5.2 lakh people in 240 habitations
The Sri Satya Sai Water Supply Project Scheme, the brainchild of the spiritual leader late Sri Satya Saibaba which intends to supply safe drinking water from the Godavari river to the water- starved upland villages in West Godavari district, is facing rough weather. The meandering Indira Sagar Right Main Canal and the R&B roads seem threatening the very existence of the drinking water scheme.
The scheme is designed for execution with a financial assistance from the Sri Satya Sai Trust Board to draw river water from a point near Polavaram to cater to the drinking needs of 5.2 lakh people from 240 habitations falling under 17 upland mandals in the district. An intake well was constructed on the river banks for pumping of water into a treatment plant by vertical turbine pumps. The pipeline runs for a distance of 627km to all the habitations falling under the scheme.
The pipeline criss-crosses the right main canal and the R&B roads, facing the risk of breakages during execution of works. According to a note circulated by the Department of Rural Water Supply (RWS) at a meeting of the governing board of the water scheme at the Collectorate here on Thursday, the breakage of water pipelines that reportedly came across the right main canal crossing at different points has resulted in deprival of water supply for 72 habitations.
The RWS has claimed to have restored water supply in 45 villages after completing the bridges by the Irrigation department for intersection of the canal and the roads en route. Chintalapudi MLA Maddala Rajesh of the ruling Congress said water supply was yet to be restored in 27 villages. In the note, the Executive Engineer of the RWS department estimated the loss at Rs 2.40 crore in view of damage of the pipeline in the process of constructing a bridge across the right main canal at Prakasaraopalem under Nallajarla mandal alone while seeking reimbursement of the same from the Irrigation department, the nodal agency of the canal execution.
Similarly, the pipeline was damaged for a stretch of 2 km due to road widening works under execution by the Roads and Buildings department in the Chintalapudi-Gurubathulagudem section. Quoting the guidelines, the authorities from the Irrigation and the R&B departments maintained that there was no provision for compensation in such cases as the pipelines that ran across the passage of the roads and the canals ‘unauthorised’.
It is the brainchild of Sri Satya Saibaba to supply water from Godavari to upland villages ‘Pipelines breakage has resulted in deprival of water supply to 72 habitations’