RAJAHMUNDRY: Minister for water resources Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao felt the need to expedite the Polavaram irrigation project works in order to complete its execution by 2019. The minister along with Central Water Commission chairman S. Masood Hussain and other officials held a meeting here on Saturday. Later, the minister said that nearly 54 per cent of the total project works were completed so far and works on the Right Main Canal were completed upto 91 per cent, Left Main Canal 59.6 per cent, while head works were over by 41.2 per cent. Referring to the new Land Acquisition Act, 2013, the minister said that the project affected persons who completed 18 years of age were eligible to get relief and rehabilitation and added that accordingly, they sent revised estimates worth about '58,000 crore to the Centre to release funds to implement relief and rehabilitation package to the project affected people. He also made it clear that they were taking up execution of the project in a transparent manner.
Central Water Commission chairman S. Masood Hussain asserted that a team of experts had inspected the project works at ground level during their visit to the project site at Polavaram in West Godavari in October, 2017. They were inspecting the project works again in the last few days and noticed that the works were going in an expeditious manner. Meanwhile, the experts committee members have been inspecting the progress of project works in the last three days at Polavaram to take stock of developments.
