Minister for Irrigation T. Harish Rao directed the officials to speed up acquisition of land required for Palamuru-Ranga Reddy lift irrigation project aimed at irrigating 12.3 lakh acres in upland areas in Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy, and Nalgonda districts.
At a review meeting held here on Thursday, Chief Engineer of the project V. Linga Raju explained that out of 26,576 acres land required for the project, 12,779 acres — including 4,229 acres government land and 8,505 patta land — was already acquired, and steps were afoot to acquire another 14,023 acres.
Mr. Harish Rao asked Panachyat Raj Minister Jupally Krishna Rao, who represents Mahabubnagar district, to help the officials overcome the bottlenecks in the acquisition of the remaining land required for the project. “Timely acquisition holds key in completing the project as per the schedule,” he said, adding that meeting such target would require completion of land acquisition on war footing.
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The Minister sought to know from the officials concerned the problems being faced by them in completing the acquisition in 18 packages of the project. He suggested Special Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi to take steps to bring two officials from the Geological Survey of India to Telangana for speeding up the survey work.
Asking the land acquisition officials to take the help of revenue officials, local elected representatives, legislators, and even Ministers in overcoming the problems in land acquisition, Mr. Harish Rao felt that such a team work would help resolve issues. He asked the officials and elected representatives to convince people and farmers and ensure a smooth acquisition.
Secretary (Irrigation) Vikas Raj, Chief Engineer (Designs) A. Narender Reddy, Advisor (Lift Irrigation projects) K. Penta Reddy, and Officer on Special Duty D. Sridhar Rao, apart from other field-level engineers and representatives of contract agencies, also attended the meeting.
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