Ujelli villagers asked to relocate to facilitate Sangambanda dam works

We have allocated houses to all those persons from the villages who attained 18 years of age but still we have been witnessing delay in the rehabilitation of these villagers

Mahbubnagar: People of Ujelli village of Maganuru mandal in Mahbubnagar district have been asked to immediately relocate to the rehabilitated areas to help facilitate filling up of Sangambanda reservoir to its fullest level.

Speaking to the media here on Thursday, Mahbubnagar District Collector Ronald Rose said that the Sangambanda reservoir was built to store 3.37 TMC of water.

However, due to delay in the relocation of the Ujelli villagers from the areas to be submerged by the reservoir, the Irrigation Department officials were finding it difficult to utilise the full capacity of the reservoir.

“At present, the Sangambanda reservoir is being filled with only 2 TMC feet of water as against its full capacity of 3.37 TMC due to delay in the relocation of villagers.

We have been urging them to relocate to the rehabilitated areas and providing them all the necessary facilities like roads, water, drainage and other infrastructure facilities like school buildings, community hall, gram panchayati building, anganwadi centers and even allocating places for temples, graveyards and erected power lines. We are ready to resolve any other problems they may be facing,” informed the Collector.

Later, the District Collector along with Chittem Rammohan Reddy, Maktal MLA, visited the submerged areas under the Sangambanda reservoir and interacted with the people of Ujelli village and urged them to relocate to the revalidated areas as early as possible and help in facilitating the filling up of Sangambanda reservoir to its fullest extent.

Speaking on the occasion, Collector Ronald Rose said that as against 538 households in Ujelli village, 932 houses have been newly allocated in the rehabilitation centers for the villagers.

“We have allocated houses to all those persons from the villages who attained 18 years of age but still we have been witnessing delay in the rehabilitation of these villagers.

Since the past 10 years, the Sangambanda reservoir is having deficit water capacity due to which we are not able to meet the irrigation water requirement under Sangambanda ayacut.

At present only 90 people have started constructing new houses in the Ujelli rehabilitation center, we are urging all the villagers to start the construction works and shift their houses as early as possible,” said Chittem Rammohan Reddy, MLA, Makthal.

In order to speed up the rehabilitation works, the district administration has already released Rs. 17 lakh to provide water facility to the rehabilitation areas and also sanctioned Rs. 13 lakh for the construction of a gram panchayat building at the rehabilitation center.

In addition to this, the district authorities are also providing additional amount of Rs. 12000 and Rs. 4100 per each house hold for the construction of individual latrines and sink pits respectively. The District Collector also advised the villagers that if they construct the houses collectively, they could save up to Rs. 15,000 on construction costs.