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Fund crunch, land issues slow pace of irrigation projects
Barring Kaleswaram, Pranahita and Nagarjunasagar projects, work on all other irrigation projects is moving at a snail’s pace. In many cases, land acquisition is proving to be a major hurdle in the speedy completion of the projects.
Hyderabad: Barring Kaleswaram, Pranahita and Nagarjunasagar projects, work on all other irrigation projects is moving at a snail’s pace. In many cases, land acquisition is proving to be a major hurdle in the speedy completion of the projects.
The first major irrigation project taken up by the Telangana government - Palamuru- Ranga Reddy lift irrigation project at the cost of Rs 36,000 crore is facing many hurdles. On one hand the contractors were insisting on changes in the project design while on the other, the land acquisition has become an irritant.
Irrigation officials said that only Rs 280 crore has been spent on the project in the last six months as against the allocation of nearly Rs 7,800 crore in 2016-17 budget.
Out of the requirement of 26,000 acres of land, the government could acquire only 15,000 acres so far due to various reasons, including delay in clearances from the forest department.
Work on Devadula lift irrigation project is also going on at a slow pace due to problems in land acquisition. The government aims to complete the project by June 2017.
Out of the requirement of 9,199 acres, the government had so far acquired only 4,000 acres. Sources said that Rs 450 crore has been spent in the last six months for the project. The release of funds for other projects was also meagre.
Only Rs 332 crore has been spent on A Madhav Reddy; Rs 210 crore on SLBC project and Rs 250 crore on Kalwakurthi lift irrigation project during the first six months of this financial year.
Out of Rs 6,286 crore earmarked in the budget proposals, Rs 2,500 crore had been spent under Kaleswaram project.
Though the government allocated Rs 1,152 crore for Sitarama and Bhaktha Ramadasu lift irrigation projects, no funds were released as the tendering process was still pending at different stages. For Pranahitha project, the government released Rs 500 crore.
The Dindi lift project was also pending due to delay in the finalisation of designs and tenders. The government was also lagging behind in achieving the targets set to revive the abandoned tanks under second phase Mission Kakatiya.
Nearly 9,000 tanks have been indentified for its revival this year at the cost of more than Rs 2,000 crore. The total spending on the mission in the last six months was Rs 810 crore only.
The irrigation officials maintained that the Finance department was releasing inadequate funds due to financial crunch. In all, about Rs 7,000 crore was released during first two quarters out of Rs 25,000 crore allocated for irrigation this year.
The department had already brought to the notice of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao about the delay in the execution of project works.
The CM assured early release of the remaining Rs 18,000 crore funds in the third and fourth quarters to complete the targets this year, the source added.
