Govt keen on weeding out hyacinth: Excise Minister

Vijayawada: Minister for mines and geology and excise Kollu Ravindra attended as the chief guest at the Krishna district irrigation board advisory meeting held at the Collectorate in Machilipatnam on Tuesday. Officials from water resources, revenue and other departments and MLAs of Krishna district attended the meeting. Krishna district collector DK Balaji presided over the meeting.

Stressing up on the need to protect the crops from inundation in the monsoon season caused by heavy rains and floods, he said the state government gives top priority to weed out water hyacinth and desilting of drains and canals for free flow of water and allotted funds for the works. Farmers are suffering losses in Krishna delta region due to crop damage caused by water stagnation in the farm lands. Addressing the meeting, Ravindra alleged that the previous YSRCP government totally neglected irrigation, drains and canals in the state.

He said funds are also allocated to weed out the hyacinth from the irrigation drains and canals. Krishna delta needs 10,000 cusecs of water and is able to supply over 7,000 cusecs from the canals.

Krishna district irrigation advisory board passed a resolution asking the state government to release 10 TMC water from Nagarjuna Sagar for the Krishna delta needs. Due to the negligence of the previous government, Pulichintala reservoir water reached dead storage levels.

The board meeting also passed a resolution demanding the government to set up Krishna river board management office in Vijayawada and decided to invite tenders for the works linking the Polavaram canal to Eluru canal in Gannavaram Assembly constituency at a cost of Rs 32.10 crore.

Krishna district collector DK Balaji said drinking water supply is the first priority and irrigation water the next priority. He said he would personally inspect the canals and drainage maintenance works in the district to check the crop damage caused by floods and heavy rains.

MLAs Mandali Buddha Prasad, Dr Kamineni Srinivas, Varla Kumar Raja, Kagita Krishna Prasad and others explained the problems being faced by farmers in their respective constituencies and asked the officials to resolve the problems.

Irrigation SE Prasad, District agriculture officer N Padmavathi, officials of RWS, Drainage and water resources, water bodies association president Aalla Gopala Krishna and others were present.