Water shortage a perennial problem for Atmakur

Nellore: Atmakuru constituency, one of the dryland areas in the district, has been totally neglected by the leaders who had been representing the constituency all these years.

Atmakuru Assembly constituency was formed in 1951 comprising Chejerla, Atmakuru, Ananthasagaram, Anumasamudrapupeta, Marripadu and Sangam mandals. It has 2,08,999 voters as of 2019. The major problem of this constituency for several decades has been lack of water for irrigation and drinking purpose. Before every election, politicians promise to resolve the issues but nothing has been done.

Farmers used to cultivate crops based on rain-fed tanks of Atmakuru Peddacheruvu, Boggeru and other small water bodies, steams, rivulets in the constituency and had no option but to go in for cultivation of commercial crops like tobacco, red gram green Gram grown with less water.

Though Somasila reservoir with storage capacity of 78 tmc ft is located in Ananthasagaram mandal of this constituency, it is not able to provide water for irrigation or drinking purposes as that project was designed for drawing the water for delta areas.

In case the reservoir crosses more than 42 tmc ft water capacity, irrigation department used to release the water for agriculture operations from North Feeder Canal (NFC) of Somasila dam through Sangam and Kanigiri reservoirs.

Nallapureddy Srinivasulu Reddy (Kota mandal) was the man behind getting this project when he was a revenue minister in NTR Cabinet.

It was constructed between two hills of Ananthasagaram-Somasila village of Atmakuru constituency.

But they did not benefit as Atmakuru is located at higher level.

Though Kamma and Muslims are the dominant sections in this constituency, their political representation was not much. While Muslims are confined to small trades, Kammas settled in finance business as private moneylenders in Madhya Pradesh and Uttara Pradesh states.

This gave space for the Reddy community from delta areas to fill the political vacuum and it was mostly the Nellore Reddys who had been getting elected from here. Anam Ramanarayana Reddy was elected from this constituency in 2009 during YS Rajasekhar Reddy tenure. However, in 2014 and 2019, Mekapati Goutham Reddy of YSRCP won the seat. On his untimely death, his brother Mekapati Vikram Reddy won in byelection in 2022.