TTD to complete Balaji reservoir on war-footing: Bhumana Karunakar Reddy

Tirupati: The TTD will complete the works on Balaji Reservoir aimed to meet the water requirements of Tirumala, Tirupati and surrounding towns on a war-footing, said Tirupati MLA Bhumana Karunakar Reddy here on Saturday.

Karunakar Reddy, who is also a special invitee of TTD Trust Board, after inspecting Balaji Reservoir, near Renigunta on Saturday evening, told the media that acquisition of 254 acres of private land and clearance for 493 hectare of forest land had already been completed for the projects to come up on 3.5 square km area witha storage capacity of about three tmcft.

The sole source of water for the dam is rainwater from Tirumala forests, he said, adding that the projectwill help save about a tmcft of rain water from Tirumala forest that is now going waste every year for supplying drinking water in Tirupati and also for visiting pilgrims.

It is expected that the project will receive at least 1 tmcft of water even when there is moderate rainfall and would cater to the needs of Tirumala and Tirupati area for the next 50-60 years even without depending on Krishna waters.

Strongly defending TTD taking up the project from the Irrigation Department that would cost the religious institution about Rs 350 crore, he said in the interests of pilgrims it is essential for TTD tospend its funds for the project.

``Many popular temples in the past had lost their sheen and faded into history for the sheer reasonof failure to meet the water required for visiting pilgrims. Such situation should not be allowed to repeat in the case of Tirumala, theabode of Lord Venkateswara, the most popular Hindu God,'' he averred.

As Tirumala-Tirupati is one of the fastest growing cities based on the booming pilgrim economy, it is the bounden duty of TTD management to see the water requirements of the ever increasing pilgrims as well as the people engaged in the pilgrim services in Tirupati and surrounding towns should be taken care of, he asserted.

This feature is unique to this project alone as per the version of Engineers.versopn'' MLA said.TTD chief engineer Ramachandra Reddy and others were present.

It may be noted here that recently TTD had decided to take up the responsibility of the construction of the reservoir which was actually proposed by Irrigation Department under Galeru Nagari Sujala Srvanthi (GNSS) and land acquisition and project works of the earthen dam to some extent were also completed by the department from government funds before the TTD decided to take up the project construction following the change of guard in the State after the general election.