Staff crunch hits upkeep of Musi project

With having only eight employees to man the project, the maintenance of the project is badly affected

Nalgonda: Lack of sufficient staff seems to be badly affecting the maintenance of Musi project as it has only eight employees working for it at present as against the total required number of 34 persons, including technical and non-technical staff.

There are only one assistant engineer, one joint engineer, one electrician, one fitter and four gang men engaged for the maintenance of the Musi project, which was constructed on the Musi river near Bopparam Village of Kethepally mandal in the district in 1954. The project, which has a water storage capacity of 645 feet, is the second biggest water reservoir in the district after Nagarjunasagar Project. It is also providing irrigation facility to total ayacut of 30,183 acres and drinking water to Suryapet municipality, which is the second populous town in the district, having more than one lakh population.

In addition to this, the district authorities seem to have no concern on the security of the project as neither security guards nor the police are engaged in providing security to the project. Speaking to The Hans India, an employee, who is working on the Musi project, on condition of anonymity, said inadequacy of staff had adverse impact on maintenance of the project. He said 34 employees were posted at the projects at the time of its inception, but nobody was appointed in place of retiring staff for decades. Finally, only eight employees remained now, he regretted.

The Musi project has now got significance with the announcement of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao during his recent visit to Nakrekal constituency that he would camp at Musi guest house for a full day and discuss the feasibilities to fill the Musi project with waters of Srisailam Left Bank Canal. When contacted, Nakrekal MLA Vemula Veeresham said he had already brought the matter of staff crunch to the notice of the Chief Minister.

Musi Parirakshna Samithi president Nune Venkata Swamy demanded that the State government immediately sanction Rs 200 crore for the modernisation of the Musi Project. He also expressed displeasure over the slow pace of works in setting up of regulatory gates and other works on the project with an expenditure of Rs 11 crore, which was sanctioned by the earlier Congress government.

By Pillalamarri Srinivas