Vamsadara River Flood Walls: Farmers still waiting for them to protect their crops, property

Srikakulam: The construction of flood walls on both sides of Vamsadara river bund has failed to take-off and cost of estimations were enhanced eight times in a span of 15 years.

Due the damage caused by the floods off Vamsadara river in 2005 and prevent the further damage by the floods, in 2006, the then Congress government proposed to construct flood walls with an estimation of Rs 177.82 crore in four packages.

For three packages required land was 1,042.48 acres in riverbank, but only 336.53 acres have been acquired so far. The government paid Rs 18.01 crore to the farmers for the 336.53 acres of land.

The works of the fourth package are going on a snail's pace and for the other three packages were estimated at Rs 121.22 crore in 2006, the works were not executed yet due to land acquisition hurdles and technical troubles. As result the cost escalated for three packages to Rs 651.53 crore in 15 years.

In the fourth packages, the required land was 378.42 acres of it 164.64 acres was acquired and out of Rs 56.6 crore only Rs 8.38 crore worth works completed in a span of 15 years.

Superintendent engineer (SE) for Vamsadhara river project D Tirumala Rao told The Hans India, "We issued notices to contracting company on September 22 in 2015, January 18 in 2016 and October 2019 to stop the works under three packages due to delay".

We have prepared a revised estimation for three packages and submitted it to the government, after getting permission old contracts will be cancelled and fresh tenders will be called, he added.