TDP national general secretary N. Lokesh on Thursday promised to take up the interlinking of Eluru canal with the Polavaram project when his party comes to power next year, and observed that the irrigation sector was ruined after Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy took the reins in 2019.
He was responding to a plea by the people of Ampapuram village of Gannavaram Assembly constituency during his Yuva Galam padayatrafor interlinking the said canal with Polavaram, for which a sum of ₹15 crore had been sanctioned during the TDP regime, but to no avail as the YSRCP government went about reversing the TDP government’s policy decisions.
Mr. Lokesh said the Annamayya project was swept away by floods as the YSRCP government did not take up even maintenance works, and that once the TDP staged a comeback, it would revive the project.
He claimed that the TDP government had spent ₹68,294 crore on irrigation projects, but the YSRCP dovernment did not spend even one-fourth of that amount.
He promised the farmers of Bapulapadu mandal that the people displaced by the Polavaram right bank canal would be paid compensation soon after the TDP formed the government in 2024, while recalling the vision with which his father and party national president N. Chandrababu Naidu had taken up the interlinking of the Krishna and Godavari rivers through the Pattiseema project.
