Pulichintala: AP agrees to rehabilitate TS villagers

Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government has agreed to rehabilitate and compensate the villagers who are being affected by flood waters of Pulichintala project. As 11 tmc of water reached the Pulichintala project, at least four villages in Nalgonda district are facing the danger of submergence. Earlier, Telangana government wrote a letter in this regard.

Chief Secretary of Telangana Rajiv Sharma and top irrigation officials met Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary IYR Krishna Rao in the Secretariat on Thursday evening and held discussion on the issue.

Krishna Rao told the officials that the government had agreed to reduce the water inflow from 11 tmc to 7.5 tmc and release Rs 20 crore towards compensation and rehabilitation of these four villages. Earlier, the AP government had given only Rs 10 crore out of the assured sum of Rs 40 crore.

Pulichintala on river Krishna is a recently commissioned project before the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh with a total storage capacity of 45 TMC of water. Parts of areas likely to be submerged under the reservoir are in Nalgonda district of Telangana State and other parts are in Guntur district of AP. Rajiv Sharma mentioned in the letter that in view of copious releases from Nagarjuna Sagar, the water will be impounded in Pulichintala project. He pointed out that without providing resources for rehabilitation and resettlement of villages in Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh started impounding water due to which several villages of Nalgonda were submerged.

Sharma also requested Alok Rawat, Secretary, Water Resources at the Centre to direct the AP government not to go ahead with the impounding of water while bringing the facts to his notice.

Even the irrigation Minister of Telangana T Harish Rao also spoke to Aditya Nath Das, Irrigation Secretary of AP to resolve the issue. Further, he demanded to release compensation to the affected people due to the submerging of villages.