10,000 acres to be acquired for Polavaram

Eluru: West Godavari district collector K Bhaskar said that a plan has been chalked out to construct 18 new housing colonies with modern facilities for the displaced people of Polavaram irrigation project.

The collector conducted a review meeting on the progress of irrigation projects and National Highway construction works with various officials at Collector’s meeting hall here on Saturday.

Speaking at the meeting, the collector said that the construction of the housing colonies would be handed over to the housing, R&B, Panchayat Raj, Tribal Welfare and Engineering departments and directed the officials to call for tenders to complete the colonies on a war footing.

He clarified that those departments should take responsibility for the construction from leveling of land to house construction, power supply, street lighting, drainage, cement roads etc.

He advised the Housing and R&B department officials to give up old styles of working.

The Collector said that about 13,080 acres have to be acquired for the displaced people under the land-land scheme of the project.

He said a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore had been kept ready for the land acquisition and these funds would be utilised by March 2017.

Stating that he would try to get additional funds for the land acquisition if necessary, Bhaskar said the Centre had sanctioned Rs 2,000 crore for the Polavaram project and promised to get the maximum portion of it allotted to the district.

He directed Kukunuru Sub-Collector Shan Mohan to acquire 10,000 acres of land and take action to utilise the Rs 1,000 crore available with the district administration.

He directed the officials to complete the Polavaram Right main canal (PRMC) works under Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Scheme (PLIS) immediately.

He said motors will stop pumping water to PRMC to enable officials to take up the completion of 51 structures at a cost of Rs 75 crore.

Reviewing the National Highway construction between Chinchinada and Mogalturu, he said that land acquisition for the project had been initiated and asked the National Highway officials as to when they would complete the project.

The NH officials told the Collector that the works would be completed within one year. To this, the Collector responded saying that he had initiated the land acquisition for the project and wanted to see the project completed in his tenure.

Accordingly, he suggested a time frame of six months for the completion of the project.

He directed the agriculture officials to take necessary steps to complete the seeding in 4.20 lakh acres during Rabi season in the district by December 18. Joint director of Agriculture Y Sailakshmeswari said that the farmers had planted seedbeds in 6400 acres to date and were now a bit apprehensive due to the Vardah cyclone warning.

The Collector directed the agriculture officials to alert the farmers in Mogalturu, Palacole and Yalamanchili mandals and expressed satisfaction over the completion of crop season and the yield reaching the houses of farmers safely.

He directed the officials to supply water to every acre in the district and said that Rs 5 crore had been allotted for the Rabi management in the district.

Joint Collector P Koteswara Rao, Polavaram Land acquisition Special Collector Ch Bhanuprasad , DRO Katta Hymavathi, Polavaram Project Right Canal SE B Srinivasa Yadav, Irrigation SE Srinivas, Sub-Collector Shan Mohan, Sumith Kumar Gandhi and others participated in the meeting.