More wasteful expenditure on defunct dams

Gulbarga: While the state is always falling short of funds for developmental projects, it has wasted crores on two irrigation projects that were conceived 40 years ago, but are still not releasing any water to farmers badly in need of it in the Krishna basin.

And now the state government is planning to spend more money on rebuilding the main canals, distributaries and field irrigation channels (FICs) of the Bennethora Major Irrigation and the Lower Mullamari Medium Irrigation projects to see that they release water to farmers, albeit four decades too late.

Launched in the early 1970s as part of drought relief work, the two projects have not benefited farmers to date despite hundreds of crores spent on their execution.

An incomplete Ben­nethora project designed to provide ir­r­igation to 20,234 hectares of parched land in drought-hit Chittapur and Sedam taluks of Gulbarga district, was inaugurated by then Chief Min­ister H.D. Kumaraswamy in July 2006 even without conducting a trial run to see if the water reached the farmers’ fields.

Not surprisingly, the gates of the ri­ght and left bank canals of the dam that were opened during its inauguration have since remained locked, despite the Rs 320 crore that has been spent on it.

The lower Mullamari project was designed to irrigate 8,100 hectares, but it too has failed to serve its purpose.

Experts blame the design of the canals as the water released from the reservoirs to the fields re-enters them th­rough the same route! While the Water Resources Department accuses farmers of destroying the field irrigation channels by carrying away slabs and other material used to build them, the farmers blame use of sub-standard material for their construction and la­ck of maintenance for their disappe­arance.

“Numerous piece-meal efforts to set right the defects in the canals and distributaries to channel the water to the fields have failed. So the government has come to the conclusion, based on the suggestion of experts and officials of the water resources department that the projects, except for the dam portions, will have to be re-done,” said a top official of the Irrigation Department, adding that a detailed estimation report would be prepared in about 20 days.