Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday set a deadline of August 15 for water to flow in the Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Project (PLIP) and vowed to rig up the construction site with surveillance cameras so that he can monitor the work from his home in Hyderabad. “I will monitor the works whenever I find the time,” he said to mediapersons after inspecting work at the Pattiseema as well as the Polavaram projects.
The Chief Minister asked engineers and contractors to expedite work to meet the August 15 deadline. “You have to release water through eight pipelines by August 15. So make trial runs on July 15 and 30. The Irrigation Department will work out the details of taking the flood waters from the Yerrakaluva and Budameru into the Polavaram Right Canal to avert submergence of the town,” Mr Naidu said. The Chief Minister said that there would be eight pipelines to carry flood waters through Pattiseema to the Krishna delta and on to Rayalaseema through the Nagarjunasagar project. The compensation to be paid to farmers affected by the project will be settled shortly, he said and pointed out that previous governments did not do justice to farmers who had surrendered their lands for the Polavaram project.
Mr. Naidu appealed to farmers who filed cases against land acquisition to withdraw their petitions as the government was ready to give a just R&R package to them.
