Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy directed the officials of the Water Resources Department to prepare an action plan for filling all irrigation projects in 40 days and questioned why some of them could not be filled so far in spite of heavy inflows caused by floods. He also sought estimates for new projects on the basis of priority.
Addressing a review meeting on the irrigation sector on Monday, Mr. Jagan called for a report on the capacity of canals and the pending works in order to draw priorities accordingly.
He enquired about the status of the works in the Polavaram, Velugonda, Vamsadhara and other new projects and told the officials to be cautious about the utilisation of funds.
Alternative measures
Officials informed the CM that most of the Jalayagnam works were pending because of problems in land acquisition and issues related to the mandatory forest clearances. They also explained the alternative measures being taken to fill the Kalyani dam and NTR Jalasayam near Tirupati.
The WRD officials said the total capacity of the Gorakallu reservoir was 12.44 tmcft, but it could be filled only to the extent of 9 tmcft.
The clearance of the Forest Department was required to impound water it to its full capacity. Similarly, filling the Avuku reservoir also needed forest clearance. The Chief Minister directed the officials to take immediate measures to overcome the problem.
While 5000 cusecs of water had to be released from the Telugu Ganga project to the SPVB reservoir in Kadapa district, only 1,300 to 2,000 cusecs was being released. Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy questioned the officials why only 2.62 tmcft of water was being released to the Penna-Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir against its capacity of 11.10 tmcft.
The Chief Minister directed the officials to supply water from the Handri-Neeva project to Bhairavanitippa and to complete Tungabhadra canal modernisation works at the earliest.
