Wanaparthy: Farmers demand immediate repairs to Sarala Sagar Dam

Wanaparthy: The farmers of Madanapur mandal of Wanaparthy district demanded that the State government to take up the restoration of Sarala Sagar project on priority and ensure that farmers who are cultivating lands over 300 acres get the irrigation water for the current Rabi season.

Addressing the media, Jakkala Venkataiah, State Chief Secretary of Telanangana Farmers Samithi in Wanaparthy said that the breach in the bund of the Sarala Sagar happened just because of sheer neglect of the authorities and the responsibility must be taken up by the State government. "While on one hand, the government is claiming big that it is doing all that needed to restore reservoirs and lakes and constructing dams, however, the present event of breach in the dam clearly tells that they are just talking tall and doing nothing to maintain the existing dams and reservoirs. At least now, the concerned authorities must learn the lessons and restore the mud bund at the earliest and provide water to the farmers under the Sarala Sagar ayacut."

Soon after the information of Sarala Sagar spread, Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy visited the spot and assured the farmers that immediate steps would be taken to restore the dam. In fact, the dam is a rock construction having a length of 158.49 meters in length and on the both sides, it has a mud bund constructed over a length of 1,078 meters and it is regarded as first dam in Asia and second in the world to have been built with automatic Saifan technology.

Using this technology, there is no need for the engineers to open the gates of the dam manually and as the dam reaches a certain level, the dam gates automatically open up releasing water to the right and left canals.

However, in the last many years, this dam was neglected and the government did not give due attention to its development and maintenance because of which the mud bund which had developed a leakage was broken down and the water stored had flooded fields down and damaged the crops.

Even though the State government during the third phase of Mission Kakatiya project renovated the reservoir bund with a cost of Rs 230 crore, the quality of work was poor due to which the dam's mud bund suffered leakage ultimately the flooding the crop lands.