Telangana: CM KCR Is Focussing On The Palamuru Project

Telangana Chief Minister KCR is now focusing on Krishna district's Palamuru project which is dependent on the Mahabubnagar district. He wanted to discover why the lift irrigation schemes were taking so long to build, so he's looking into the Kalvakurthi, Bhima, Nettempadu, Gattu, and Thummila upliftment programmes, which were started before year 15 but are still not finished.

The CM decided to hold a review meeting with project engineers, district ministers, and MLAs within a day or two and know the reasons for this. The CMO office has already informed the Irrigation Department about this. The Chief Minister is expected to assess and direct the feasibility of irrigating 10 lakh acres of land in the joint Palamuru district through these programmes, as well as determine why there has been a delay.

About 5 lakh acres are likely to be irrigated by the Kalvakurthi project under the 'Jalayagnyam' scheme and water can be sent to each 2 lakh acres through Bheema and Nettempadu projects. The projects will be 100 percent completed if the land acquisition and construction of culverts are completed.

However, the lack of funds is becoming an issue. In this context, the engineers have proposed to allocate at least Rs 1,500 crore for the financial year 2021–22.

He subsequently indicated that they might complete the entire project as well as the pending tasks. However, funds were not allocated sufficiently. In particular, only Rs 75 crore has been allocated for the Kalvakurthi project. In fact, there are Rs 80 crore pending bills under this, while another Rs 29 crore is pending for land acquisition. The funds allocated in the current budget are sufficient for the pending bills themselves.

In particular, if the canal works are completed in Package-29, there is a possibility of supplying water for 57 thousand acres of land. However, Rs 18 crore funds are not given from a year for land acquisition. The pending bills are another Rs 40 crore. With this, things did not move forward. District Minister Niranjan Reddy has brought this to the notice of the Chief Minister in previous reviews. Along with this, the link between Palamuru and Kalvakurthi has to be decided. Another 50,000 acres in the Nettempadu area are being supplied with water.

Although Rs 192 crore has been allocated for the project, the pending bills here are Rs 25 crore. The situation is the same in the Bheema project as well. In addition, the proposal to carry water from the Karvena Reservoir in Palamur to Jhura has to be finalized. The embankment excavations are to be finalized. The engineers were working on it since the CM had asked them to come up with detailed information on all of the projects.