Srikakulam: Encroachment of irrigation tanks Ramasagaram and Kotta Cheruvu in Gorinta village and oth-er tanks in surrounding villages are causing concern among people in the villages. Farmers of their ayacut area are losing their crops due to non-supply of water.

Ramasagaram and Kotta Cheruvu, in Ponduru mandal, get water from the Right Main Canal (RMC) of the Narayanapuram project situated on Nagavali river.

For the last several years, some residents of Gorinta, Tungapeta and Penubarthi villagers have allegedly been occupying the tanks and also bunds. As a result, the tanks are losing original capacity and shrinking.

As storage capacity got reduced, farmers get no water once supply through RMC from Naraya-napuram project is stopped. The Narayanapuram project, its canals and ayacut area tanks have remarkable historical background as the project had become a reality due to sacrifice of the then MLA Tammineni Papa Rao who chose water project in his Assembly constituency than minister post offered to him.

“We have noticed the encroachments and will conduct a joint survey along with revenue offi-cials soon and remove the same,” deputy executive engineer (DEE) of the irrigation project, Y Ravindra Naidu told The Hans India. He said they had received a bunch of complaints and rep-resentations from the farmers as water is not reaching their fields due to encroachments.