The State government has directed the Irrigation Department officials to complete all the pending medium and major irrigation projects by June next by preparing an action plan following the orders on issues of land acquisition and cost escalation issued earlier this year. Minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao held a video conference from the Secretariat with the engineers in the districts for about seven hours. Principal Secretary S.K. Joshi, Engineers-in-Chief C. Muralidhar and J. Vijay Prakash, Advisor to Government on lift irrigation projects K. Penta Reddy cleared the doubts raised by engineers in the districts.
The Minister told the engineers to follow the guidelines mentioned in the Government Order (GO) 146 on issues related to cost escalation and complete the works on all 25 medium and major projects by June next. He directed the authorities to ensure resumption of works by talking to contract agencies and also utilise GO 123 for addressing problems, if any, in the acquisition of land for projects. The meeting listed out priorities in completion of the pending works by discussing project-wise details. Mr. Harish Rao told the revenue officials to complete acquisition of 1,700 acres land in Mahabubnagar district to complete Koel Sagar, Bhima, Nettempadu and Kalwakurthy lift irrigation schemes. The Minister told the officials to speed up land acquisition for Palamuru-Ranga Reddy and Prahanitha projects.
