Telangana projects hit sand bank; plans to irrigate lakhs of acres grind to halt
Hyderabad: Progress of irrigation projects in TS have been derailed due to some unlikely reasons like railway crossings and shortage of sand. The delay in getting clearance from the railways to take up work at crossings has effectively halted 11 irrigation projects, affecting irrigation on 8.20 lakh acres.
Irrigation projects, especially in Mahbubnagar district, are facing severe sand shortage. Besides, the state government's policy not to allow heavy vehicles to transport sand to check illegal inter-state smuggling of the construction material has also adversely impacted work on irrigation project.
The government is allowing only tractors to transport sand. The low volume transported is like a trickle, while a deluge is needed. Though the major works pertaining to construction of reservoirs, dams and canals have been completed, the delay in railway crossing works has blocked irrigation facility to over 8 lakh acres.
The government has been repeatedly requesting the railways to take up work on the crossings at the earliest. Irrigation minister T. Harish Rao said that the government had written to the railways in February, requesting speeding up of the works but there has not been much progress. He said the government even paid Rs 68 crore to the Railways to take up works.
Irrigation (Infographics)
As per the original deadline, the railways are supposed to complete work on 30 crossings covering eight irrigation projects by July 2015. However, only half of the work was taken up, due to which the irrigation source to 2.15 lakh acres was hit. This year, the Railways is supposed to take up 65 works covering 11 projects. Of this, it could take up only 15 works so far, while the other 50 works are yet to take off.
The major pending works of railway crossings pertain to Pranahitha-Chevella (now Kaleshwaram project) where about 14 works are lying pending, followed by Bheema project with 18 works.
Works pertaining to Devadula, Nettempad, Koilsagar and Udayasamudram project are also pending. With regard to sand shortage, the officials have estimated that 2.34 lakh cubic metres is required to take up projects in Mahabubnagar district alone, but not even half of the reserves are available.
With this, the works at Nettempad, Kalwakurthy have been affected. Though the contractors have made all the arrangements to complete works at Jonnalaboguda and Gudipalligattu lift irrigation schemes as part of Kalwakurthy lift irrigation projects, the works came to a halt due to shortage of sand.
Problem of plenty for Telangana irrigation
The TS government is ready to spend Rs 1 lakh crore on irrigation projects in three years and even allotted Rs 25,000 crore in this year’s Budget, the highest ever so far to realise Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's dream of irrigating one crore acres in four years.
However, the irrigation department is struggling to spend these funds as there is not much progress of irrigation projects due to land acquisition, compensation, contracts and legal issues. The official machinery is yet to match the speed at which the government is announcing projects and setting deadlines.
The government allotted Rs 8,500 crore for irrigation in the 2015-16 Budget, the department could hardly spend Rs 6,000 crore during the entire year and in this backdrop, spending Rs 25,000 crore during financial year 2016-17, almost three-fold more than last year, seems a difficult task.
The government has planned all the projects on Krishna and Godavari rivers and with latest developments over AP government complaining to Centre and
AP farmers approaching Supreme Court against TS projects, concerns are being raised whether these projects would make any headway this year or get stuck in legal disputes.
If that happens, the Budget allocation of Rs 25,000 crore for irrigation this year would go unutilised. Even in the absence of any legal disputes, the projects are not making headway due to farmers putting up stiff resistance demanding higher compensation to give up their lands.
Two days ago, the land acquisition for Mallanna Sagar project in CM's home district Medak was halted after violence broke out when farmers tried to attack revenue officials who visited their village for land survey.
