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Rehabilitation and Resettlement works moving at a sluggish pace
While the State government has been making all out efforts to complete the prestigious Polavaram Irrigation Project (PIP) by 2019, focus is being laid on the Herculean task of completing the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) process which is lagging behind.
Amaravati: While the State government has been making all out efforts to complete the prestigious Polavaram Irrigation Project (PIP) by 2019, focus is being laid on the Herculean task of completing the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) process which is lagging behind.
Officials are preparing an action plan on the timeline to expedite the R&R process. Massod Committee, in its report, also suggested to the government that since the R&R work was going on at a slow pace, it has to be expedited as the government wants to complete the project by 2019.
The State government has successfully completed a major task of diaphragm wall and targets completion of the entire project by 2019. According to officials of Water Resources Department, the total required land for the project (up to +45.72 mts) in East and West Godavari districts is 1,66, 213 acres for submergence, land to land for farmers and construction of R&R colonies. Out this target, around 1 lakh acres has already been acquired.
The progress of rehabilitation and resettlement process has been slow for the mega project. According to a report, only 3,922 project disturbed families (PDF) have been rehabilitated so far against the total of 98,818 families. Similarly, around 9,000 project affected people were only rehabilitated so far against total 1,92,259 persons.
The total habitations affected with the Polavaram Project are 371 but only 26 habitations have been shifted so far. As it was decided to increase the level of ECRF dam to +45.72m from +41.15m, the submergence area has also been increased.
The government has to lay more focus on shifting of colonies and other rehabilitation and resettlement works as it wants to complete the project within a year. In the recent Collectors’ conference, the State government suggested to the Collectors to focus on speeding up the R&R works for various irrigation projects, particularly the Polavaram Project. An official of the Water Resources department said that pending cases in courts relating to R&R were posing hurdles to the completion of the process.
However, as per the revised estimates submitted by the State government to the Centre, Rs 33,225.74 crore was required for completion of the R and R process. The State government claimed that this was the major reason for escalation of project cost to Rs 57,940.86 crore (as per 2014-15 price level) from 16,010.45 crore (2010-11 price level).
The Central Water Commission (CWC) wanted the State government to provide justification in respect of variation in expenditure along with supporting documents. On other hand, the State government allocated around Rs 9,000 crore for Polavaram Project in 2018-19 Budget. In the backdrop of conflict with the BJP-led Central government, the State government is facing tough time in executing such a major project.
