Godavari water to reach Krishna tomorrow

Amaravati: The water from River Godavari will reach River Krishna on Wednesday, as the officials lifted 16 out of the 24 pumps at Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Project on Monday.

This was disclosed by officials to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu during a review meeting on Polavaram and other priority irrigation projects at the Secretariat. The Chief Minister directed officials to ensure every acre in the State gets water for irrigation.

NITI Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) ranks Andhra Pradesh in the 3rd place in the country, informed Irrigation Secretary Shashi Bhushan.

The CWMI is an important tool created to assess and improve the performance of States and Union Territories in efficient management of water resources.

NITI Aayog conducted this water data collection exercise in partnership with the Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation and all the States and Union Territories.

Explaining that AP is number 1 in 12 of the 28 indicators used to create the index, Chandrababu Naidu said that the State’s goal should be to achieve No.1 position.

On the occasion, Chief Minister suggested to officials to analyse dry spells and prevent drought conditions. “Though completion of priority projects is part of our mission, we must also be experts in water management, spreading awareness on water harnessing, optimisation of the deployment of our current tools like rain guns and micro-irrigation tanks and ensuring maximum yield in agriculture,” Chandrababu Naidu said.

He instructed officials to issue an order that any area with groundwater at a depth of more than 35m this year will not be allowed to dig borewells for agricultural purposes. He said that the groundwater level should rise to 20m across the State. The Polavaram Irrigation Project reached an overall progress of 55.38 per cent, officials informed the Chief Minister during the review of the project.

This includes the head works, the right main canal and the left main canal. Chandrababu Naidu also virtually inspected the progress of works using a live drone feed. More than 75 per cent of the excavation for the spillway and spill channel has been completed, in other words work to a stretch of 838.80 lakh cubic metres out of 1,115.59 lakh cubic metres has been completed.

This week, against a target of 11.76 lakh cubic metres, 3.02 lakh cubic metres of earth was excavated for the spill channel, pilot channel, spillway, left bank and approach channel.

About 26 per cent of the overall concreting for the spillway, stilling basin and spill channel was completed, accounting for a total of 9.6 lakh cubic metres out of 36.79 lakh cubic metres. In all, 28,000 cubic metres of concrete was laid this week. More than 61 per cent of the construction of radial gates was completed.

All the officials concerned were directed that to complete 54 priority projects by July end. They must be kept ready to start functioning, the Chief Minister said.