Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday took stock of progress on the Poola Subbaiah Veligonda Project and officials informed him that work on the irrigation infrastructure would be completed by July.
The Poola Subbaiah Veligonda is an irrigation project in Andhra Pradesh's Prakasam district that aims to provide water to fluoride and drought-srtuck areas of the Prakasam, Nellore and Kadapa districts of the state. Krishna river's floodwaters from the Srisailam reservoir will be diverted to irrigate the proposed areas.
Responding to the CM's directions, the project contractors said that work on the first tunnel, by digging 200 meters every month, would be completed by June-July. They also informed Reddy that construction of the head regulator, which controls the flow of water entering the canal, would be finished in three or four months.
The CM also directed that excavation for the second tunnel be taken up from both ends, thereby speeding up the process.
Officials said that acquisition of land for the project would be completed by March 31.
Officials also informed the CM that only 600 meters of the first tunnel could be dug between 2014 and 2019, while they had achieved only 410 meters of excavation on the second tunnel over the last five years.
Reddy, however, said that over the last eight months, since he formed the government, 15.8 to 17.2 km could excavated.
The CM also agreed to a proposal of increasing the relief and rehabilitation package to the evacuees.
On the occasion, state minister Adimulapu Suresh suggested that an additional ayacut (an area of land which is irrigated) could receive water by digging another canal in the Pullalacheruvu Mandal, which would cost Rs 70 crores. The new canal could potentially irrigate lands of SC and ST communities, a proposal to which the Chief Minister agreed.
Time and cost overruns were suffered in the past as the project demands extensive tunnel boring work with machines procured from Germany and the US.
Comments
0 comment