Political parties out to make most of Veligonda project

Ongole: The Pula Subbaiah Veligonda project, whose foundation stone was laid more than two decades ago, is becoming the eye of a political storm. Ruling and opposition parties in the state are trying to use the project to woo voters in the five Assembly segments, who will benefit from Veligonda project once completed.

When completed, the Veligonda project will draw 43.58 tmc ft of flood water from the backwaters of Srisailam reservoir. The water travels through two tunnels of more than 18 km in length and fills Nallamala Sagar with 10 tmc ft of dead storage capacity, constructed by closing three natural gaps between hills at Sunkesula, Gottipadiya and Kakarla. 

Once flood water received, the project provides water to nearly 4.47 lakh acres of land fully utilised, 15.25 lakh people get safe drinking water in 737 villages, 23 mandals of Prakasam, 5 mandals of Nellore and 2 mandals of Kadapa districts.

By January 2018, about 15.1 km of the Tunnel I and 10.7 km of the Tunnel II had been bored.

While this is so, the Prakasam District Development Forum, Communist Parties, YSR Congress Party and other public organisations took the demand of completion of the Veligonda project as agenda for many meetings and round tables in the district for the last two years and kept demanding release of adequate funds for completion of the works.

On the other side, the government blames the contractors for not working up to expectation and deleted work of 3.6 km from Tunnel I and 8.07 km from the Tunnel II and asked them to stop boring of Tunnel I at 15.2 km and Tunnel II at 10.82 km. 

It invited new tenders by revising the estimates of project cost from Rs 5,150 crore to Rs 7,800 crore, in March 2018. The contractors of the Tunnel I and II went to court against cancellation of their contracts, delaying the project further. 

The court ordered the government to continue the tender process and try to consider the pleas of the earlier contractors. 

As the delay is continuing, the CPM and the former Ongole MP YV Subbareddy announced individual padayatras in the five assembly constituencies in the western area of the Prakasam district, last month. 

But to the surprise of the opposition parties, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced a fortnight ago to restart the works of the project by bringing a mutual consent between the old and new contractors. He promised to complete the first tunnel by January 2019 and supply water to the area as Sankranti gift.

But on August 9, the CPM started its padayatra from Kanigiri. CPM state secretary P Madhu said that the state government changed the dates of completion of the Veligonda project several times and now announced Sankranti as a fresh deadline. 

He asked the government whether Sankranti deadline was announced as part of a poll promise. He demanded resumption of works immediately. He also demanded houses, jobs for the people who lost their lands for the project and demanded to include Podili, Marripudi and PC Palli villages into the project area.

The YSRCP leaders YV Subbareddy and Balineni Srinivasa Reddy announced they would be on Praja Padayatra for the completion of Veligonda project. Subbareddy said that the padayatra starts on August 15 and continue for 15 days. 

He said that though the country secured Independence seven decades ago, people in the district didn’t receive its fruits. He said that in the five assembly constituencies in the western area of the district Markapuram, Yerragondapalem, Darsi, Giddaluru and Kanigiri, people are struggling for water for drinking and agriculture needs. 

He said that the foundation stone for the Veligonda project, which is the lifeline of the area, is laid by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in 1996, but no funds are released for it and no commitment is shown by the TDP government. 

It is that YS Rajasekhara Reddy started the works and completed nearly 70 per cent of it by funding it adequately, he claimed. After the demise of Rajasekhar Reddy, he alleged that the Congress and TDP government neglected the Veligonda project but the Chief Minister is successful in making promises and postponing the deadline.

Just one day before the padayatra of YSRCP starts, the TDP ministers P Narayana and Siddha Raghavarao along with their MLAs and party leaders in the area visited Veligonda project on Tuesday and announced resumption of works. 

The ministers explained that the government is committed to complete the project on war-footing and reiterated to provide water from the first tunnel at least by February 2019. 

They said that the Chief Minister will follow up the works regularly, like Polavaram project and Irrigation Minister Devineni Umamahesara Rao will troubleshoot any issues that may arise over the time.