Rajahmundry: Farmers are up against the state government for planning to take up another lift irrigation scheme on the Godavari river near Purushottapatnam to divert surplus water to meet cultivation needs in the Yeleru canal command area, upland mandals in East Godavari and for industrial purposes in Visakhapatnam district. The farmers’ main contention is that the river witnesses a brief spell of floods once or twice a year and it’s only at that time that surplus water is released into the sea from the Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage at Dowleswaram.
On other days, the inflow of water into the river is relatively less and farmers in the Godavari delta region are finding it difficult to get adequate water to cultivate crops during the kharif and rabi seasons of the year. The farmers said that a large amount of money was spent on the execution of a lift irrigation scheme on the Godavari river at Pattisam village of Polavaram mandal in West Godavari to divert the surplus water to the Krishna delta through the Polavaram Right Main Canal (RMC).
When the state government accorded top priority to the execution of the RMC to ensure successful functioning of the Pattiseema project, it was unable to do so as RMC was not yet ready for use in full scale. Similar was the case with the Polavaram Left Main Canal. Its completion — and optimal usefulness — could take years, they said. They were critical of the state government for trying to take up lift schemes that offered temporary relief by spending huge amounts of money instead of expediting the execution of the Polavaram irrigation project.
The farmers said that the objections raised on the execution of the Polavaram project with regard to the submergence of the Agency mandals by the Odisha and Chhattisgarh two governments in the Supreme Court were still pending. They were afraid that the TD government’s move to take up lift irrigation schemes might make the Polavaram project redundant. When the Water Resources authorities visited Purushottapatnam recently to carry out an initial survey on the proposed lift irrigation scheme, the farmers would not allow them to carry out their work.
Farmers’ leader K. Trinatha Reddy said, “We opposed the Pattiseema project, but the government went ahead to execute it. Out of 24 pumps, only three or four are functioning. The Polavaram RMC is not yet ready to take the proposed diversion of 8,500 cusecs of water.” AP Farmers Federation state president Y. Nagendra Nath said, “We urge the state government to concentrate more on expeditious completion of the Polavaram project which will have many more benefits than lift schemes that involve huge amounts of public money and have no utility in the long run.”
