Leaders of the opposition parties including CPI, CPI(M), Congress and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have demanded that the Andhra Pradesh government allocate at least 15% of the total Budget to irrigation projects.
Participating in a roundtable on ‘Budgetary Allocations- Irrigation Projects’ here on March 5 (Sunday), they also demanded that the government must send a delegation to New Delhi to mount pressure on the Central government to complete the Polavaram irrigation project at the earliest.
CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna alleged that both State and Central governments had been neglecting the irrigation projects in the State. “There is a need to mount pressure on the Centre by the political leaders in the State irrespective of their affiliations,” he said.
TDP leader and former Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao said that the proposed interlinking of the Vamsadhara and the Nagavali rivers was being neglected. Similar was the fate of the Pattiseema and Purushothapatnam projects, he said.
Referring to the comments made by Water Resources Minister Ambati Rambabu on the repairs to the damaged diaphragm wall of the Polavaram irrigation project, the opposition party leaders dismissed them as ‘baseless’.
“The YSRCP government has neglected the irrigation projects which were undertaken during the TDP tenure on a priority basis,” Mr. Umamaheswara Rao said and asked what were the YSRCP MPs doing when the Centre failed to clear the bills for a prolonged period.
Congress leader N. Thulasi Reddy alleged that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had failed in taking up the issues pertaining to irrigation projects with the Central government ‘in the desired manner’.
“The previous governments had allocated 15% to 17% of the total Budgets to irrigation projects, the YSRCP government earmarked a very small amount in the previous years,” he said and urged the government to allocate at least 15% of the Budget to the irrigation sector.
CPI(M) State committee member Ch. Babu Rao, farmers leaders Velgapudi Gopalakrishna, analyst T. Lakshmi Narayana, CPI State assistant secretary Muppala Nageswara Rao and others also spoke at the roundtable.
