Upset over shortage of water, scores of families which had come to their native villages in the Palnadu region enjoy Sankranti vacation, squatted on the Macherla-Srisailam Road bringing traffic to a standstill for about two hours. Locals too joined the protest.
Many areas in the Vinukonda, Macherla and Narsaraopet Assembly segments are facing acute shortage of drinking water. With groundwater levels plummeting to a new low, bore wells in many parts have gone dry.
Precarious situation
“Earlier, we used to get water by digging just 120 feet, but last year, there was no trace of it even after we had dug up to 1,200 feet. People are digging new bore wells, but water continues to elude us,’’ says Julakanti Srinivasa Reddy, a resident of Rachamallapadu village in Veldurthy mandal.
If there is a way out of this unending misery, it is the construction of Varikepudisila Lift Irrigation project. The project envisages lifting of water from River Krishna upstream the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir and impounding it at Varikepudisila, near Dommarlagondi village in Veldurthy mandal.
The Varikikepudisila Sadhana Samithi which has been agitating for the project since 1990, says the project can stabilise an ayacut of 50,000 acres in Veldurthy, Durgi, Bollapalli mandals in Guntur and Pullacheruvu mandal in Prakasam district.
The Khosla Committee, constituted in the year 1952, recommended construction of the project.
Successive governments have shown little interest in the project. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone for the project in March 1996 and in 2008, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who was then the Chief Minister, also laid the foundation at Gangalagunta.
“The State government should take up the construction of the project otherwise, the region will turn into a desert leading to mass migration,’’ says senior journalist Ch. Krishnanjaneyulu.
