Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu met with irrigation department officials on the issue of linking Godavari River with Krishna Delta.
The Chief Minister was informed by the officials that the lift irrigation project to lift (flood) water from Godavari will cost Rs1272 crore. For power generation, drawing 77 TMC of water from Godavari will cost Rs 258 crore while the operation and maintenance charges will cost Rs 26 crore per year. This river linkage, officials said, would be beneficial for Rayalaseema to use water for domestic and industrial purposes.
Chandrababu Naidu directed the officials to expedite works of pending projects in the state and clear bottlenecks. He also asked officials to complete the works of Polavaram main canal before the next cropping season.
The Chief Minister also suggested officials to work on possibility of Krishna-Penna rivers linkage and also explore the possibility of including Buckingham canal. He added that he would soon be talking to the central government officials and explore possibilities of Centre’s support through its National River-linkage project and include state’s projects too.
The Chief Minister asked officials to work on completion of the following projects immediately: Vamsadhara, Thotapalli, Veligonda, Handi-Neeva and Gaaleru Nagari projects.
For Vamsadhara, phase 1 of the project has been completed while phase 2 is in progress. The phase 2 will irrigate 45,000 acres. The 1st phase of Thotapalli project will cover Rs1.2 lakh acres. The Chief Minister has asked officials make the project operational by next year. For Veligonda project, forest clearance is pending. The project should be completed by December 2016, the Chief Minister said.
For Handri-Neeva project, the Chief Minister has asked officials to explore the possibility of making water from this project available to Chittoor. However, officials said that water can made available to Madanpally. For Gaaleru Nagari, the Chief Minister suggested that the water be provided till Gandikota.
This apart, the Chief Minister has asked irrigation officials to clear trash and water hyacinth blocking water in canals. He also asked them to expedite modernization works.
Irrigation minister Devineni Uma Maheswara Rao, Principal Secretary (Irrigation) Adityanath Das, Secretary (Irrigation) Kadmiel, Commissioner (R&R) TK Sridevi, Engineer-in-Chief Venkateswarlu and all other projects’ Engineers-in-Chief and Special Deputy Collectors were present.
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