Glitches in planning drain State funds

PUSHKAR WORKS

Warangal/Khammam: Faulty planning and lack of foresight by the district administration with regard to construction of Pushkar ghats in Warangal and Khammam districts resulted in the loss of Rs 6.5 crore to the Telangana Government.

As there were no inflows into River Godavari close to Pushkar ghats at Mullakatta (Warangal) and Ramachandrapuram (Khammam), the pilgrims were made to walk for more than a kilometre to reach River Godavari to take a holy dip.

In Warangal district, the administration had planned three ghats – Mangapet, Mullakatta and Ramannagudem –with an outlay of Rs 32 crore for civil works and Rs 3 crore for contingency plans during the Pushkaralu.

The works included bathing ghats, construction of approach roads to bathing ghats and renovation of temples, besides providing other basic amenities such as drinking water and electrification. Although the early onset of Southwest monsoon may have raised the hopes of sufficient inflows in the Godavari, there are complaints against the district administration that it failed to do proper homework while estimating the ways in which the inflows gravities.

However, the inflows at Ramannagudem and Mangapet are fairly close enough to the Pushkar ghats for the devotees to walk down, while the pilgrims who visit Mullakatta had to walk all the way to the other end that comes under the purview of Pusur village in Wajedeu mandal of Khammam district to have a holy dip.

On the first day of Pushkaralu, the pilgrims who found no water at Mullakatta went across the river accessing the under-construction high-level 1.8-km-long bridge connecting Hyderabad and Bhoopalapatnam in Chhattisgarh (NH-163). But by the evening, the bridge was reportedly closed by the authorities.

Meanwhile, the district administration in Warangal had closed the Mullakatta Pushkar ghat and instead, was diverting the pilgrims to Ramannapet and Mangapet. It may be noted here that the administration had spent a whopping Rs 5.25 crore for the construction of bathing ghats, drinking water facilities, Ganga Devi temple, barricades and other works.

At other places like Ramachandrapuram village under Venkatapuram mandal in Khammam district, the situation was no different. Here also, the authorities have constructed bathing ghats, besides providing other amenities at a cost of Rs 1.25 crore. Surprisingly, not even a single devotee came to this Pushkar ghat to take a holy dip on the first day, according to sources.

However, the official statistics say that about 20,000 pilgrims took a holy dip in the ghat during the past four days. Meanwhile, the pilgrims criticised the officials in both the districts for not making arrangements for them at the Pushkar ghats at Pusur, especially when the ghat at Mullakatta is of little use.

“It was a huge disappointment as the police, who were guarding the entry point of the bridge, didn’t allow us to go to Pusur where there was plenty of water available for taking a Pushkar bath,” J Srinivasa Rao, who came all the way from Hyderabad along with his family lamented.

In fact, earlier, it was reported that the government was planning to throw open the bridge for vehicular traffic, but it had to defer its decision due to non-completion of civic works.

By Adepu Mahender