KURNOOL: The World’s largest Solar Park at Gani-Shakunala village in Kurnool district has turned out to be a curse to the village having a population of 5,000, as the reservoir built to store water has breached. Confounding the worst fears of villagers, the reservoir which has a capacity to store 3.5 lakh kilo litres of water, was flooded. This has forced the authorities to let out water into the Maddileru rivulet that goes through Gani village.
Mr Raghavendra, a resident of the village told this correspondent that there had been heavy inflow from Alugu Vagu due to heavy rains and the rivulet could have overflown, submerging the village. Solar Park, which houses companies like Greenco, Adani, Azure, and Softbank promoted units has been the bone of contention between the villagers and the district administration. The district administration had pooled around 5,500 acres (2500 acres from Gani Village and 3,000 acres from the Shakunala village) against the wishes of the villagers.
The villagers told this correspondent that the compensation for about 1200 acres has not yet been settled. Only those farmers who moved the High Court of Andhra Pradesh were compensated for land acquisition. When asked about the breach of the reservoir at Solar Park, executive engineer Sudhakar said that they had acted on time and averted what would have been a major disaster. They had forcibly opened up the reservoir to let the flood water out. The reservoir which was built as a part of Solar Park was not built according to specifications and the contractor allegedly compromised on the quality of the project.
The cost benefit ratio to the villagers who had parted with their lands was highly disproportionate to their loss of livelihood. Mr Raghavendra said that although his village had parted wiht 2,500 acres of land, only five got permanent jobs and 10 of them were hired as security guards. The Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken personal interest in grounding the park to the district and showcasing it as a trophy of development to drought hit area.
